Trying to Listen to my Body, to my Mind

The last three years have been hard on many of us, but I have been trying to listen to my body, to my mind, and to my heart through all of it.

Have you?

Yesterday I wrote as I usually do, straight without forethought, typing with minor edits along the way, just getting my thoughts out. The rest of this post will be from that perspective.

Back in Time…

are you singing the song from Huey Lewis & The News yet?

I hear the ocean waves as I sit with the door open. It is raining outside so I am not down at the beach; well that is one of the reasons.

There has been a lot in the last three years; so many draft posts that have been started, and not posted or not finished, many that begin to explain parts of those other reasons.

Back to the waves.

I hear the constant crashing, the reminder that time continues, no matter how much sometimes we just want it to stop so we can just recover for a bit and stop the time so we can catch up.

Sometimes we can’t though and life gets blurry, we cannot see what is in front of us clearly or the path forward. Last night with the rain it was a bit like that.

My family is down enjoying the waves. It is a bit cool today; it is only 67 degrees Fahrenheit, and it is raining or misting, so it was not going to be warm to stand on the beach while they were playing in the water. Last night we walked to the beach when I knew there would not be many beachgoers jockeying for the stairs to investigate how it would be to even get down.

My Body

You see the stairs on good days can get very crowded and I no longer walk fast. In fact, I am walking with forearm crutches and have in the last three years acquired more than a few chronic illness diagnoses. I do not want to change this blog into a chronic illness blog but it will be an important part of our life while homeschooling. Chronic illness affects all parts of life.

Learning to take time to listen to my body and take smaller steps, to take more time to walk, to not rush… it is all hard when the waves are soothing your soul and calling your heart. Even now sitting on the couch, watching the waves and hearing them, I want to feel my feet in the water, and the sand being pulled from under my feet. However last night, it was unnerving to feel the ground leaving from beneath me when I got to the softer sand. I never made it to where the waves truly were crashing into me. Maybe tomorrow.

The stairs have been improved, thankfully. It used to be that once you got to the bottom of the cement stairs it was simply deep sand and rocks; whatever the ocean had dumped from the tide. Walking with forearm crutches through there was not something I was expecting to be easy. The public accessway now has a metal landing and a ramp. While slippery and covered in seaweed and rocks, it was manageable with some assistance. Ramps are hard for me physically and I’m still trying to get the hang of which way works the best. But this made it so much easier than I was fearing.

My Mind

My mind said I needed to be here. So I said yes to a trip that I could have said no to for so many different reasons.

My mind says I need to write. So I am.

My mind is a bit scared of what my body can and cannot do, so I have to trust in those around me, those that I have come with that we can get me through what I want to try and get me back up to the hotel room.

My mind fears what so many of the diagnosis names can mean and what the insurance denials for physical therapy place on my shoulders for discipline for my own persistence to get better. But some of this will be posts for another day.

Hopefully, I can come up with ideas for a different blog name for my Chronic Illness journey. Dismantling My Zebra was an idea, but I’m not sure if that fits.

As I gaze out the door at the waves again, I can see my kids heading back. I’m grateful I seem to be doing okay there.

Amidst Concerns

Any parent wonders if they are doing okay with their kids, or if they are “scarring them for life”. Add being a parent with chronic illnesses and it becomes even more of a concern.

I know I seem to be doing okay when my nine-year-old’s concern was to find me something after she bought her item. While she got herself a new pair of goggles, she came back to me with a paper bag and everyone was told I had to wait until she was back to open it.

When she returned, she was so sweet. She pulled out the tissue paper and handed it to me, saying she hoped I liked it, and she knew I liked frogs, and (again) she hoped I would like it.

When I said I did, she was so proud. Her smile and hug were everything in that moment.