Something special.

Something really special showed up in the mail yesterday. It took my breath away, and made me start crying in the middle of my kitchen. This beautiful bracelet, with the words "the wound is the place where the Light enters you" is now wrapped lovingly around my wrist, the same one which holds my crutch. Thank you, dear friend who sent it. It isn't coming off. You don't know how special it is to me. Truly. It was incredibly kind and thoughtful of you to have made and sent my way, and the strange timing of its showing up on the same day I wrote yesterdays blog post is not a coincidence. There are none. So thank you. My mental turnaround and it's arrival are going to be linked in my mind. I love it.

I look back at this blog and I can't believe that I was heading to the beach the first time this injury surfaced and here I am heading to the beach again....yet all this crazy shit has gone down in between. I wrote ~ "Worst case, eh, two weeks off" on around May 21st or so. Little did I know. It's now June 26th? 27th? Something like that. I wrote right before my birthday (June 8th) that I felt on the precipice of something monumental or great, some big great change. My emergency surgery was June 11th. Again, little did I know.

People keep asking me, "You must be going crazy not being able to run". And I keep shaking my head and saying "No, I simply miss my life". I miss driving. I miss taking care of my kids. I miss cooking dinner. And while it is awesome having the help I have, I miss being capable. It isn't easy being vulnerable, and it isn't easy being needy. I've had to put Ruby in a special drawer, as seeing her smarted a little. I have a nice stash of running magazines that I simply can't read right now, but I can't wait to dig into once I'm back at it. I have about 4 drawers of clothes that I just don't open. I miss them. So yeah, I guess I miss running a lot, if I really think about it, but on the list of things that I miss, really miss, there are some biggies up in the forefront that push it back into perspective. And I think that that is going to be the real gift of all of this ~ some perspective.

The Light that is coming out of this, the gratitude, is that when I CAN run again, my running is going to be done in a new manner. I will never, ever take the ability to run (or to walk) for granted again. I will never, ever take my friendships or my relationships for granted again, either. I don't know that I ever did, really, but I can tell you that I appreciate them in a new way, already. I've always believed how important community was ~ but until I got to actually feel it uphold not only me, but my entire family firsthand, I didn't get to actually KNOW its strength and vital importance. It is INTEGRAL to how we have survived this past month. Integral. I feel like just falling on my face with gratitude.

Packing for the beach today was strange. I can't think of the last time, or A time, ever in my life, that packing for the beach meant not including a pair of running shoes. Even in high school it was where I ran, getting ready for preseason of hockey. The beach is just universally equated with running, whether it be an actual run, or running up to Duckey's farm market on the bike for our day's fruits and vegetables. There will be none of either, this trip, for me. This trip is all about taking it slow......about savoring the time with the husband and the kids, about eating well and about enjoying our long days on the beach and our cool nights and being grateful for a beautiful house to do it all in.

My house is cleaned thanks to my housecleaners making a special visit this afternoon. The kids are all sleeping. I have us all packed up. My parents are safely home (finally!!!) and spent a lovely evening with us. This is my first night alone since the break, and I"m tucked into bed. We depart tomorrow, as soon as Nate is done school, and I can't wait. I don't think that I have looked forward to a vacation this much in years.