I fell in the mud two weeks ago and have been wallowing in it ever since. Sometimes you have to step back a few feet to gain perspective, and then again, sometimes it’s simply best not to look. This would be one of those times. I got a glance, and it wasn’t pretty.
When your day starts with two hours of binging on Breaking Bad before the coffee pot’s even emptied, it’s a good indicator of the direction the rest of the day is going to go. I need about four hours of a PBS or maybe a Brady Bunch cleanse to counteract the effects of Breaking Bad. The show truly makes me feel like I need sunshine, some fresh fruit, and perhaps a long bath.
Then there’s the whole shirt thing. Today is day, I’m not sure what, wearing the same shirt that I was wearing when I went shoulder-first into the mud. I’m teetering between being totally disgusted with the rate at which my personal standards have gone south and how easily I’ve adapted to the whole decline. Something about it makes me sad… or is it proud? I may not be physically up to the challenge of a multi-day backpacking trip… yet…but I’ve made a lot of headway in other areas that will come in handy on multiple days on the trail. I’m over the hygiene hump. I crested it about last Friday.
That was my morning, but it got better, even with my wallowing in the mud in an overly worn shirt and with too much Breaking Bad in my system for that early in the day… but I digress…
I spent a big chunk of my day in the KU orthopedic lobby (thanks, Robin) waiting to hear if all of the not moving my shoulder by leaving both my shoulder AND my shirt in tact, fearing still, that one false move and I’m back to square one, has been a fruitful commitment. I’m very happy to say that the doctor told me that things looked very good, no surgery necessary, and I could downgrade to a simple sling and,
“You can change your shirt…”
(That came up in the conversation that the shirt had been worn for a “few” days, or more accurately, longer than the length of most yoghurts’ sell-by dates.)
He (he being the Dr.) asked me quickly, in between his transcribing, two nurses who stood behind rolling computers, how I had broken my shoulder. I was glad to tell him something thatis legitimate.
I fell in the mud while hiking.
Where?
Colorado…Frisco, to be exact.
Oh, nice. At least you had a good view.
I’m so glad I didn’t have to tell him I fell off a small ladder perched on top of a leather ottoman, which gave me the height I needed to hang some artwork. Sadly, I know this from experience, but it was in Frisco, so I did have a nice view out the window. I swear by a smelly black shirt that’s heaped in the corner of my closet, that those days are over. Really.
So, my wallowing in the mud time is over, and I’ve climbed out of my hole, put on a clean shirt, and am on my way to happier days. I’m not quite ready to find gratitude or the silver lining in all of this, as my shoulder still hurts too much to see my resolve there, but I will soon. In the meantime, I have found a new appreciation for shoulders that work in full range and are far more awed by seeing a shoulder in motion these days than I am by lean runner legs, chiseled abs, or cut arms, as a working shoulder is a far more useful goal for me right now. Oh, to do a down dog again….
But for now, just one more Breaking Bad…it’s an open bag of chips and I can’t seem to keep my hand out of the bag… then I’ll do some PBS or Brady Bunch counteracting.
The truth on where I ended up on the black shirt lies somewhere between Emery’s worries of our separation anxiety and Robin thinking I should burn it. It will be washed twice, then hung in the back of my closet for posterity, or something like that.
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| New shirt, new sling, new attitude… the hair still needs some work though… |