Holding a Place No Longer

The new blog is up and running thanks to the handsome and sexy Jonathan Worent. Come find me at gabrielle.worent.com.

Old Hurts

I happened to mention to my chiropractor the other day that my knee was hurting. What followed was no fun at all, an exploratory rotation and feel, that nod you never want to see and then a quick twist and shove. He’s helped so much with chronically sore places in my back that I trusted all this twisting implicitly. I walked away assuming everything was all good now. A mere flight of stairs disabused me of this opinion. Nope, nope, nope- I still hurt only now it aaaaaached even when I wasn’t running. Or walking. Or doing anything other than sitting or, perhaps, lying in bed trying to fall asleep.

I’m not very medical so I was very proud of myself when I came up with a reason for why I was hurting. When I first hurt my knee due to a very simple tweak during an evening of bowling, I babied it, doing rehab at the gym instead of powering through the pain. Lots of slow paces on the elliptical and knee strengthening exercises. Only I never had anyone make sure I was strengthening the knee back into alignment. I thought that since I was taking care of the hurt knee at all I would be fine.

Only now it’s not fine and not only is it not fine, but now there is a whole heap of muscle I so carefully built up that holds my knee in the wrong place. I can function just fine, live a nice painless life until I put stress on that knee. A minute of running and I can feel every out-of-line ligament and bit of cartilage. I healed it, but I healed it wrong.

There have been tumultuous times of my life, times that tweaked my soul out of alignment. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you might already know the sorts of times I’m talking about. These times hurt me deep, in places I never identified. I either healed those hurts up or ignored them but either way I healed them wrong. And I go along just fine until some stress comes along and then I feel every single out-of-line emotion and memory.

I’ve been seeing a counselor for the past six months or so, trying to put back some of the things that healed wrong. He says I make counseling easy, that I already have the framework of insight, self-awareness and introspection ready for him to build on. That makes me feel like the A+ student of the crazy ward. And it doesn’t help when everything hurts, when we work together to wrench my out-of-joint soul back into alignment. There are just so many muscles built up to keep it in place.

It has been an amazing six months or so, times of healing. I told him this week that I can run my fingers down the walls of my mind and only catch them on one or two issues. There used to be sharp edges everywhere. There is so much progress happening it seems petty to whine about some pain that’s happening along the way. But my knee really hurts, even while I try to build up new muscles to hold it in its rightful place.

I’ve had to learn how to do rehab on my soul. Some of this involved a job that gave me mind-space to do that rehab. Other exercises involve learning what self-care looks like for me. I’ll give you a hint- it’s not a spa day or a shopping spree or a hot bath or anything that I expected self-care to look like. For me it’s a book that makes me think, a movie that makes me want to create something, media that births thoughts in my mind and then the space and time to cultivate those thoughts. There is little that makes me happier or feel more fulfilled than having a mind full of thoughts.

So I’m sitting at Leaves N Beans on Main, my foot up on a chair to ease the ache in my knee, telling the world about my counseling to ease the ache in my soul. I’m in the midst of the healing process so everything hurts, but I can see the end in sight. I will run again someday. I will be whole again someday.

Now is the time to do the work.

Thinking Again

Since leaving Midstate I’ve been finding that I once again have enough brain space to think.

Y’know, that was going to be the opening line for a bog post about what I’ve been thinking about. I’m sure that post would have been fantastic, it having been written by me after all, but let’s take a moment and celebrate the fact that there are once again thoughts in my head.

 The books I’m reading have enough space in my head to bounce around a bit, ramming into other thoughts and sticking loosely, like a ball of Silly Putty bouncing around a room. Connections are formed, this thought creating associations with that until there’s a web of connections, some reaching backwards in time to thoughts I’d forgotten about. I consider ramifications, turn the thoughts over and over, trying to see how they fit into the larger construct I’ve been working on for decades I like to call “How Gabrielle Sees the World”.

I feel like someone who digs out their old paints, the brushes awkward in hands that used to know every splinter and groove. The first few canvases might be ham-handed and overdrawn, colors badly mixed and lines out of whack, but they’re bright, colorful, full of the joy of rediscovery. The old skill will return in time.

Today I shall think about this return to joy. I will dwell on the feeling of happiness, like little bubbles, on the ricochet of thoughts that shakes other idea loose. Perhaps tomorrow I shall think about something else. 

Life Ambition #73

It was roughly three years when I took up running in an attempt to get in shape and lose weight (spoiler alert: it failed). I came up to a stop sign, all sweaty and out of breath, seriously wondering if this running this would ever be for me (the jury’s still out). A car pulled up next me, a vaguely thuggish looking guy leaning out the passenger side. He yelled something to me, something that startled me so much it wasn’t until after they drove away that I thought to react.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Keep up the good work!” Then he gave me a big smile and a thumbs up.

Someday, I want to do this for someone.