You know how when you have a cold or an injury and it’s the only thing you can think about? How sometimes, in the case of a bone or a muscle, you can feel your pulse in that painful spot and you hear inside your head, “that hurts, that hurts, that hurts” with every beat of your heart. Then one day, after days or weeks or months, you are pain- or cold-free. You can bear weight and bend and lift with no discomfort and no limitations. You can breathe through your nose and your abs no longer ache from all the coughing you have been doing. You are ready to put the infirmary behind you, grateful, of course, but back to full speed ahead, with no time to look back at where you were with where you are now demanding all your attention.
After a few months of back and side pain, it is gone. I can breathe and sneeze without feeling as if a knife is slicing me in two. It’s no longer the focus of my every careful move or thought. But maybe it should be. We speak rather cavalierly about counting our blessings but to consciously acknowledge specific gratitude should be as prevalent as the throbbing incantation of hurt. After months of not being able to sleep in bed, heating pad and medication, to be rid of it all should be the only thing I am thinking about.
But we are so focused on getting back into the rat race, to get back on the human-sized hamster wheel, we pack it all up in the medicine cabinet and bathroom closet and shut the door. As I write this on the love seat where I spent so many nights, propped up by pillows into the only possible position in which sleep could be achieved, I feel deliberate appreciation. And I take a great full deep breath.
