38 days later.

As I sit down to write this, it's been 38 days since the accident that left me with two broken leg bones and massively altered the direction of my life.

In the past month or so, I should have been:

• Training for my second half-marathon, getting in excellent shape and loving being in my own body (probably)
• Delivering three programs for work, further proving to my boss that I'm not actually an incompetent lump of flesh but instead a valuable asset to the team (and also quite deserving of a raise tyvm)
• Celebrating five years of being with my husband by going out to the bar where we had our first date (and wearing the new dress I bought for the occasion...okay, for New Year's Eve but it arrived on January 3)

Instead, I have been:

• Lying on a yoga mat in my office, willing my crumbling flesh prison to move the way I want it to
• Logging just shy of 60 hours of working on my farm in Stardew Valley
• Spilling a glass of wine on a puzzle that my husband and I were so close to finishing, having to order another one and start from the beginning

It's been good days and bad days, depending on so many individual factors that I'm not sure what kind of day it's going to be until I've hauled myself out of bed and crutched into the kitchen for coffee. 

Did I get enough sleep? 

How badly does my leg hurt?

How badly does the rest of me hurt?

Is the sun out? 

Do I actually get to go outside and be in the sun? 

Is my husband home or is it just me and the gang at Brooklyn's 99th Precinct? 

Do we have snacks or have I eaten them all? 

How depressed am I on a scale of "Sure, ten hours straight of Top Chef reruns sounds like a great way to spend the day" to "I wonder if they could just put me in a coma for the next three months and I could just sleep through this nightmare"?

Generally speaking, this injury has given me the time to reconnect with some of my creative side, including crafting and barfing my feelings into this blog for y'all to read and then feel sorry for me. I try and remember that when I'm having a really bad day.

However, it is also making me realize how much I took life before the injury for granted. Just the ability to decide "I want to go to this place" and not have to consider, "Can we get there in the car? How many stairs will I need to navigate? Is it snowy or icy outside?" I get that this is my reality, and in that reality this is one of the worst things to ever happen to me and it is hell and I'm sometimes afraid I won't be able to walk normally ever again. But also, that there are people who live with disabilities, and this is their every day life. And even on my worst days, I know that to be the truth, and have an entire ocean of empathy for y'all. As the kids say, you are the real MVPs. 

So today has been a pretty good day, and next week I get to go back to the doctor and there is the possibility that I'll get put into a shorter cast where...wait for it...I'll be able to bend my knee again. Stay tuned!