Crawling works

Don't jinx this

The only way out is through— that is what we say on the boat when the weather sucks. Stopping doesn’t help; in fact, that is the worst thing to do. At a minimum, get to a calm spot to anchor. Go.

And so the last year and a half, since my accident, I just kept thinking, the only way out is through. The only way out is through. But there was no direction, no motor, and no voice. I had more than a few days of tossing in the towel. Waving the flag. Hanging my head. Tucking my tail. All the crappy cliches that basically mean, “I give up.”

But a little voice in my head kept pushing. Go. Crawl if you must. Go anywhere. Do anything. Just don’t stop. So I went to the Doctor. The scans. The tests. Physical therapy. Talk therapy. Eye doctors. ENTS. Surgeries. Injections. Primary care. New primary care. Fuck it, I am my own primary care. Chiropractors. Massage. A full calendar of appointments. Like it was my job. My expensive, discouraging, oftentimes painful job.

Thank god for the friends.

One day, I whispered to a girlfriend, “I am out of resilience,” a live wire true thing to admit. She just shrugged and said, “You will find something else.” And all of a sudden, I had permission to just move forward, not try to go back to my old tools, tricks, and hacks. She didn’t try to talk me into a feeling. She didn’t remind me of days gone by. She just shrugged. So I did too. Such a remarkable, simple, perfect, powerful gift. Shrug.

A beloved buddy who had a long-time concussion a couple of years ago asked me, “What qualities do you need to cultivate if this is permanent?” and again, the gift of releasing the idea of getting back to my old self.

I had another friend who I would text, “I left the house,” and she would text back encouragement, celebrating the micro wins. I got us each a tote bag that said “Things happen when you leave the house” and wore it everywhere.

Somewhere in late spring, I started working again, a perfect project, only 20 hours a month, in town, with a team I adore, doing work I believe in. Twenty hours a month is not a lot of time, but it felt like a lifeline, and at the time, it was a stretch between all the appointments. This work was its own form of medicine. I will do an entire post about it.

I am thrilled to report that I now physically feel better than I have in years. Like a superstitious baseball player putting on the right sock first, then a secret handshake, don’t jinx the winning streak. I don’t know exactly which modality, supplement, exercise, or sleight of hand is working, so I am deeply attached to them all. Don’t jinx this.

My voice still sucks. It is a bummer. It is more tiring than I want it to be. It has some limits I keep bumping into, much to my chagrin. But my health, oh Lordy, I can honestly say I did not ever expect it to recover, and it did. In spades. I want to do all the things.

Energy is precious and precarious, and basically the only thing that matters. I am determined not to waste it. In fact, I am not like my old self. I am much better. Every day I make art. Pottery. I write. I am in a dance show. I move my body. I sleep like a champ. I dream vivid dreams of people I miss, full of shenanigans and impossible plots. I refuse to “kill time,” so I have set very small limits for social media. Instead, when I want a connection, I open my Photos app, and I text old pictures to friends, stirring up memories and stories. I send my kids photos of their childhood, our beautiful story together. I am weaving then and now into something stronger. I love it, real connection and social media at its finest. Bonus: No ads.

The only way out is through, but sometimes the only way through is crawling. But you know what? Crawling works.