How Am I Doing?

I'm checking in with myself, six months after my hip replacement, nearly thirteen years after a young man with an untreated mental illness, who didn't know to use his words, thought a gun would solve his problems.

That's how I describe my trauma to the Prince scholar gardeners.  Saying the words used to bring me right back to lying on the sidewalk outside the Safeway, holding Christina-Taylor's hand.  These days, they don't touch my heart at all.  That's progress.

I am able to look at the faces and judge the lesson learned without feeling the bullet wounds.  I can have conversations like why did they let someone like that have a gun, anyway? and steer them to voting and using your voice and talking to your grown ups about how you feel... and, by the way, I think you are absolutely right.

Not hurting has a lot to do with it, I'm sure.  I'm up and down, sitting on the edge of the raised beds, leaning over, standing up without pushing myself off the ground, carting 30 pound bags of soil from my car and over the low fence into the garden.  I don't mind bending down to pick up the trowels and buckets left by the last group of stragglers.  Nothing hurts when I do any of that; all of it was problematic before science fixed my hip.

I'm walking at least a mile outside every day, and that has led to some interesting aches and pains.  My toes hurt.  The balls of my feet hurt.  My ankles and shins remind me of their presence with alarming regularity.  And today, as recompense for annoying them during an hour with the Pilates Diva yesterday, my quads and my hamstrings joined the chorus of complaints.

At least I figured out what shoes to wear.  And I can't really blame all those body parts.  I haven't used them correctly in more than a decade.  And the rose accented epsom salts from Whole Foods make an excellent foot bath... which makes TBG laugh.... and that makes me happy.

My progress in Pilates is remarkable - to me, anyway.  My knees are facing the same direction and so are my toes - all of it without any special effort on my part.  I'm noticing a lack of lurch where before I was canted to one side.  Having a mobile hip joint makes everything more difficult - just the way it should be.  There are no more accommodations.  

My body is whole.  It's just going to have to learn how to be used.  I measured my full five feet, one quarter inch when last I stood against the doctor's yardstick.  I'm listening to pod casts and enjoying the neighborhood on foot... and my feet are the most worrisome part of my body right now.  

That's progress.