Because of knee replacement surgery, I've had a lot of solitary, sitting-on-my-couch-with-nothing-to-do-cuz-I-can't-move time. Oh, don't get me wrong - double knee replacement will change my life for the better. But that's a definite WILL...not a HAS. The process of getting from the surgery to the better is not for the weak, my friends!
But this post isn't about me whining or bemoaning the fate of my summer. Nope! I mention it to explain that all this sitting around has given me an extraordinary amount of surgically enforced "down" time...and my active mind isn't at all used to that. I may not be very physically active this summer, but I'm rarely not mentally active...and I've really been doing some thinking. Overthinking in too many cases, I'm sure. I've had some happy moments and some dreadfully sad ones, but in it all, one theme keeps coming back to me and it's time to talk about it...get some feedback, hopefully. Let me fill you in on some of what I've been feeling and thinking.
At first, I'll be honest, I was really bummed...sad...this summer. I had to end my school year early to have the knee replacement surgery in order to be ready to go once school starts up again in August, so I didn't really have a good moment of closure with some kiddos I dearly love. That's present tense, you'll notice. I'm the kind of teacher who considers you "hers" once I've spent a school year with you. There's no past tense to that kind of love in my mind. Once you're my kiddo, you're always my kiddo! But the fact is, because I teach 5th grade, I won't see many of these kiddos again...they'll be in a new building, moving forward with their education and life, as they should be. And while I'm very proud of the role I played in that and the people they are becoming, I miss them, and not really having a goodbye with them was much harder than I anticipated it would be.
The next thing I've been feeling this summer is pain. Physical, real pain. Knee replacement is considered major surgery for a reason, I've learned. It's painful. I'm just not going to sugarcoat that for anyone who's facing it. It's worth all the pain once you're on the other side and have full use of a knee that was once incapable of functioning...I'd do it again if I had the same choice. But don't kid yourself. It's nowhere near what anyone would consider easy. I ended up taking an awful lot of pain killers because of this pain, to the point that I nearly had a little addiction problem. Oh, I was not abusing them. I took them as sparingly as I thought I needed them and exactly as they were prescribed, even less than they were prescribed. But that doesn't mean you still can't become dependent on them. Everybody's body is different and my body loved Percocet just a little too much!
Thank God my physical therapist could see the beginning of an issue and loved me and knew me well enough to nip it right in the bud...cold turkey. She educated me about what the pain killer was doing and how it worked, and told me to stop taking them. Immediately. No option. Then she prepared me for life without Percocet. She helped me through every step of it in my therapy and had compassion where it was needed, but firmly moved me forward in my rehab. She is an amazing gift of God in my life and I'm very grateful she intervened, more than I could ever find words to thank her. She has saved me in so many ways...this is just one more example of it!
I am humbled and very happy to tell you I have NO pain killer addiction to manage while I'm rehabbing this new knee!!! But to come that close to disaster has some lingering effects. My emotions, my pain management, my life have been impacted because of my time on those pain killers...and doing life without them is hard while you're still in a good bit of pain on a daily basis.
I'm not really myself yet in many ways. My emotions aren't quite right. My reactions are off. I cry for no reason sometimes...honestly...no discernible reason. And other times, I cry WITH reason, but uncontrollably. My family (all boys...even the dog!) don't know what to do with me most of the time, and honestly, I'm not too sure myself some days. It's getting better as time passes, but I keep waiting for me to feel like...well...ME. I haven't for so long that I'm forgetting what it's like to smile and just be happy.
Which brings me to what's been coming back to my mind again and again.
For much of this summer, I've been physically alone. However, I've felt emotionally alone, too.
Now, I know...I KNOW...that what we FEEL isn't necessarily what's REAL. I believe that as a core value of mine, actually. It's helped me grow in my faith more than I could say. Holding on to God's TRUTH, despite what I FEEL in the moment, has brought me through many things in my life. So I'm completely aware that because I FEEL alone emotionally doesn't mean that I AM alone. In fact, I know for certain that I'm not.
I know there are friends of mine who think of me, pray for me, miss me, and even a few who have reached out and engaged me and visited me. I have amazing friends, and this summer hasn't changed my opinion on that. But it has helped me understand something in a way I didn't before, as most of your life experiences will do if you let yourself reflect on them and learn the lesson God has put before you.
People need to be seen. We need to be known. We need to know we are loved...valued...that we matter.
And more and more, I'm convinced this is ALL of us who need this, not just those who will openly acknowledge it.
I love my friends - dearly - but I'll be very honest and say that many of them have been very quiet this summer for whatever reason, and that it hurts...a lot. Not too many reach out and check on me and my progress. Perhaps that's because I update social media at least once a week, but do you know what I mean when I say it feels better for someone to ask? Very few have made the trip to the farm to visit me, though I've had some lovely times with a few friends now that I've finally been given the green light to drive again. But what about when I couldn't? Why didn't some of them come see me or call or text to check on me? Even on social media, I have far fewer "likes" on my statuses than I'd typically see, and not a lot of comments that engage me, which could be for very many reasons, I know. But no matter what reason it's happening, what it screams to me is that I'm not being seen. Or worse...that I AM being seen, but that I'm very easy to ignore.
A few of my friends have recently apologized for being absent in my life, which I have deeply appreciated. Normally, when someone apologizes to me for something, I say something like, "Oh, it's no problem." And I mean it. I'm one who forgives hurts quickly and easily. This time when it happened, I just said, "Thank you for saying that." I needed to hear it so badly! I needed validation that someone understands that being forgotten, or left out, for whatever reason it is that I've been excluded from a friend's life... STINKS!
I don't lay any of my emotional state this summer at my friends' feet. Please don't hear me say that. I know this is me...and God...and that He is doing some teaching of lessons in my life that He knows I need to learn. It's VERY unusual for me to feel this way, and I think all my friends would know this, but I want to be clear. I love you all! I'm not mad at any of you, and I'm not hurting about this any more. I'm really tuning in to what I think God is trying to teach me. Here's what I think that is...
- SEE people...really, see them. Initiate contact with people and don't wait for them to come to you. We need this. Badly. There was a psychologist named Maslow who had a theory about a hierarchy of needs that we have as humans. After we get our physiological (food, water) and safety (shelter) needs met...we need LOVE and affiliation as humans. It's that basic. Too often, I've been guilty of not seeing people. Rushing past them without taking time to really acknowledge that I see them and that they matter. I'm doing that differently now...because of my experience this summer. I am consciously seeing people...and telling them so.
- Seeing someone doesn't mean you know what they're dealing with. Love them, even when they're being ugly. There is so much silent pain that needs our love to help heal it. So much silent pain. You can't look at me know the intense physical pain I'm in most days. If I'm really good at painting the smile on, you can't see the emotional pain either. But that doesn't mean it's not there. Let your default be LOVE. Don't let the enemy steal that response from you in your self-righteous need to be vengeful and return someone's snarkiness with your own. And finally...
- Social media is tough...but it has its benefits...use them! There have been some tough things I've learned about social media this summer. Those who know me (and even those who don't really could probably guess since I have a blog!) know that I'm a big fan of connectedness. Probably too much...another thing God is teaching me that I have yet to master, admittedly! I've learned to not judge my importance to my friends and family by their "like"s, but I won't lie and say that they don't matter to me. They do. It's so easy to hit that like button...to acknowledge again that I see you...I'm tuned in to what's happening in your world...you matter to me. Do that more, friends. For the people you care about, do that. Engage people...those you care about for sure, but even those who are just casual friends. Have you thought about why people post the things they do on social media? Perhaps they need a word of encouragement. Maybe they found something profound and want to share it with people they care about. Or, like me, maybe they're stuck at home and lonely and just need SOME type of human interaction to make them feel a bit more alive. Human contact will always be preferable to me than social media, but in our day and age...we have this technology, and we can use it to be "kind and tenderhearted" as Ephesians admonishes us to be with each other. One caveat here is that we can also use social media to be malicious more easily. Don't do that! But why not use this tool we have to connect us to each other?
So..that's it. That's what God is nailing home to me lately. Deep stuff, tough stuff. Hope you can find something useful in there. I believe that God makes our stories HIS story when we share what's happening. That's one reason I've always tried to be pretty transparent...to share what He's doing in me so that if it helps you, too...He's done what He needs to do.
Feel free to engage me on some of this. I'm sure that some of it might not sit quite the same with you as it is with me, and I'm happy to chat about it.
More than anything, friends...please keep me in your prayers. This recovery business isn't all it's cracked up to be sometimes. There are big successes along the way, for sure...but many more setbacks. I suppose that's why I needed 12 weeks off work! I start week 7 tomorrow...more than halfway! Please pray that God would continue to work as only He can in my body and in my mind, and that I would stay open to that process...all of it, even the painful, icky stuff!
Moving Forward...
Angie
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment