A year ago I moved to Oakland Hills, but almost immediately hurt my back. First, I hurt it moving because I was out of shape anyway and moving is hard. Then I was in a car accident a month later that hurt it even more.
Well my back is better. My life is better because of this for reasons:
Reason #1: Sitting
After my car accident the only way I could sit was like this:
At first it was glorious, but when I'm sitting I'm usually doing other things like swiveling to get files or grabbing a book to read, so the donut wasn't always helpful. At school I couldn't sit on it and fit under the desk, which made going to class extra annoying. Plus it got dirty eventually and I felt embarrassed about that, as if it looked like I was farting in it all the time and that was why it was grubby instead of just dust from my clothes. It wasn't even washable, and the dinginess just got worse when I tried cleaning it. I worried if people thought it was dirty because my butt was dirty. And after a while it didn't do much to relieve my pain. I got tired of carrying it around. So I chucked it.
Now I can sit on anything as long as there's lumbar support. Sometimes I can achieve this with a lumbar pillow or a rolled towel, but other times whatever chair I'm in magically already has lumbar support.
Reason #2: I CAN VERB NOW!
It would seem like the worst thing in the world is to feel pain when you're not even doing anything but sitting or laying down. However, the real worst thing in the world is not being allowed to do anything besides sit or lay down. Feeling severe pain the small of my back kept me from enjoying my life. The only thing I took comfort in was eating, and sometimes even eating wasn't enough. I'm a woman who likes to dance, leap, run, play with animals, attend parties, show affection, and go places. I like to go places! And for months all I was allowed to do was sit still.
Whenever I did get up the bravery to do anything but sit still, the pain in my back immediately throbbed and stung, stopping any motion I was able to do.
However, each day I would try again. And again. Like this guy:
I would walk with my chin up, shoulders back and down, chest and heart lifted, and abs tight, as fast as I can, over and over and over. Soon my body let me live my life again with perfectly aligned posture and I got to feel something amazing: Pain from being active!
So last night I got to go walking with pibbles and my friend Joey! (pit bull terrier mix puppies!)
He is super strong and just beginning to train his pibbles so the pulling of the pibbles, which was massive, only made him feel like he was workin' out.
Where as I was kind of like this:
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| "JOEY! WAIT! WAIT JOEY WAIT! HELP ME UP! :-(" |
Reason #3: Making up for lost time
There are so many things I missed out on in the last year. Now that I'm able to verb again, little things I missed out on and get to do now fill me with joy. To me, walking a doggie is a big thing, but so is unpacking my bedroom, cleaning, rearranging my closet, and going grocery shopping by myself.
I can't believe how much enjoyment I'm getting out of doing laundry this weekend. It took until now to be able to do things like carry a load of clothes to and from the washer and dryer and put them away. All the clothes I brought here were dirty and I've basically been living in the same boring 10 items of wardrobe that I could handle for the last year. It's a terrible feeling to wear the same thing every day for a year.
So I'm sure there are more reasons, but that's pretty much it for now. I'm thinking of doing a fashion show with all of these clean clothes and maybe I'll upload it here for you guys to see!
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