In 12-1/2 hours, this school year will be over. Now I admit, there's a part of me that enjoyed having a 7-week vacation from work, but don't think for a moment that I would willfully pay the price for such a vacation. A few moments on the snow forced that price on me.
So while I've had 7 weeks off, in just over half a day all my colleagues will join me in vacation mode. The difference will be that they will be physically able to enjoy their vacations, while my existence will not change. As I just wrote in my journal, my life revolves around three items: the clock, so I know when to take my pills; the crutch, so I can get around; and my cell phone, which I always keep on my person in case something happens and I need to summon help. I hate being this dependent, this fragile, this helpless.
The doctor has instructed me to remove the immobilizer when I'm at home, and without it I feel so exposed. The slightest incorrect movement could erase 7 weeks of healing, so you can bet that I am even more careful now. I'll still wear it when I go out, but at home, for the short distances I walk in the house, it now stays off.
When school gets out tomorrow my son will head up into the mountains to go camping with his mother. The original plan was that I would drive him there, but events have obviously forced a rewrite of that plan. On Tuesday I was to head to Las Vegas and my first stay at the Encore, but that's now cancelled. I will be home, planning and choreographing every move I make so as not to injure myself any further, all so that someday I will be able to walk again, and without a limp.
I had so many plans for this summer. I was going to take my son to Great America, in Silicon Valley, an amusement park I enjoyed as a kid and teenager and young adult. I was going to take him up north so we could drive through the redwood tree at Leggett. I was going to drive to Colorado, camping en route. Iceland was my big trip, and I was going to end the summer with the annual scooter rally, this summer held at the Gold Discovery Site in Coloma. All of this, and so many other not-quite-yet-gelled plans, have all changed. I will stay home and heal, and look to the future when I'll be able to travel.
Heck, I will stay home and heal, and work towards a future in which I'll be able to drive myself somewhere.
Usually I don't fall into this trap of self-pity. At night, though, in the silence of the darkness and the emptiness of the house, I sometimes succumb. I don't know what's so different, why it's easier to resist in daylight than at night, as the only thing different is the time on the clock, but nevertheless it's so. I'll be better tomorrow, though, and look forward to calling my son as soon as school gets out, to hear that excitement in his voice that can only come from a child at that last bell, and I'll smile.
Summer vacation begins.
4 comments:
I forget what you broke, but I will tell you what my mother told me when I broke my leg. When you start walking, make a point to walk near windows and mirrors (like at the mall). You can see yourself in the glass and adjust so you don't limp.
Have a speedy recovery! You will get better soon. There's always a next time.
Life's book usually has a chapter or two that we don't expect. What can you get out of "this" chapter? Is there some 'sitting down' project that you've been putting off because there were too many other things to do? Have you tried reading something different from what you usually read? Need a couple of books? I'll be more than happy to mail you a box of books that I'm finished with; just let me know- you have my email.
You could start a new blog featuring your family history....
Do you have any lesson planning or tweeking to do for next year?
You have plans, just not quite the ones you thought you had. :-)
I've read plenty, amazingly enough! Thank you for the offer.
What I *should* read, though, is the instruction manuals for the TI-83 calculators I have at school, so next year I can teach stats with them when appropriate.
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