I have been thinking about the journey of life. Mostly because I have had a lot of time on my hands and while I am trying to spend less time consuming the internet it is hard. But on the weekends where I try to mostly unplug I have thoughts.

Life is a weird and complicated thing. We never know what is going on in someone else’s head or what has happened to them in the past and how that affects them. But that is a whole large discussion. Instead I want to talk about the journey and what makes that journey hard.

I don’t think it is new things, or change, or anything else specifically that makes it hard. I think it is if that “thing” feels like a step backwards. For example, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness 3ish years ago. That didn’t change my life. It gave me more thinks to thunk, but it didn’t actually change my life in a way that felt like it was backsliding. It was more of a “Ohhhhh that is why I hurt all the time” kind of thing.

However when that chronic illness directly affected the outcome of my ankle surgery, that fucked me up. It is still fucking me up. I have a wound that is much smaller than it was and is healing, I don’t have to wear my boot thing anymore, I have been allowed to get back on a stationary bike (five minutes a day to start my ankle mobility again) but it feels like I have been moving backwards. A lot.

For the last two weeks I have been able to walk on my own around the grocery store. It is a big deal but 5ish months ago that was normal. And when I get done at the store I am exhausted. I used to be one of the annoying people who could sit on their heels while on their knees (super handy when I was meditating more), but now I can’t even get close to that and if I do I get exhausted like I have been running. I have always been in good cardio shape, probably from running long distance/playing soccer. Now my five minute pedal on a bike takes it out of me. These all feel like going backwards and it is the worst.

What got me thinking about this directly was when I attempted to paint war-dollies today. I have a wonderful paint set up. It is probable and I set it up on the coffee table while we watch tv but since in order to do that I have to sit low. I tried it today, using my meditation bench so I wasn’t all the way down. After about 20 minutes I couldn’t do it any longer.

I know a lot of this is just my ego telling me things and that I shouldn’t listen to it (thanks Sarah for reminding me of this) but it is hard because he is in here with me. Right now I am trying to reframe it as Starting Over instead of Going Backwards, we shall see how it goes.