Days 91 and after: Small Steps

I am healing. 
Slow and steady. 
One
Foot
In front
Of 
The
Other. 
I am stronger each day.

I have come to terms with the fact that this healing is slow. Slow by my standards at least. Many people look at me and my progress and they would say that I am healing insanely fast. But I know I am not. I know where the boundaries are with this injury. I know that I am an incredibly fit person and getting back to 60% was the easy part. But to do my two favorite sports I have to be at 95% or I won't be able to do them to the level that I want to. I was climbing moderately hard grades and I was training for ultra marathons. I can't do those things in the same way now, and for me that has been immensely frustrating. 

I can climb, but I am limited. I am limited not only physically by my foot, but also mentally.  I have no idea how long it will take for me to feel comfortable sport climbing again. I was terrified of falling to begin with and now the volume in my head has been turned up immensely on that one. I was just starting to work through and face some major fears with leading. I was just starting to feel strong again. And now, I am scared about half way up the routes again. My stomach bottoms out as soon as I pass above 20ft up. I hold it together and never let it show on my face, but it's hard again. It feels like I have taken 15 steps back. I have only been top roping since my injury and while I have maintained my hand, finger, arm, and upper body strength, I can't use my legs in quite the same way. Obviously I can't use my right foot the way I had before, so any climbs that happen to have feet that are right dominant (which is a vast majority) I will struggle on. But there is a bright side: I can climb, and while I am several grades below where I was, it will come back. Also I spend a good deal of time traversing, and that is helping strengthen my technique and the muscles in my feet. It's not the same, but I am healing and I will keep healing. 

As far as running goes, I know running is out of the question for several months... probably a year... maybe more. It has taken me a little bit of time to work through this one. I started climbing with my big plastic boot probably only two weeks after my injury so I never felt like I took a huge break from climbing. I never felt like I "missed out." I could climb before I could even walk properly. Even now, almost two months post-injury, I still have trouble walking. So I started to just put running into this bubble of things I'd do again at some point. But it was winter and the weather was crummy and it didn't really phase me. But once the weather started getting nicer, all I could think about lately has been going for a run. Then someone with a lot of experience with these injuries told me how long it took her to heal and I was crushed. Completely crushed. I'd like to think I hid that well, but I did open up to a couple of close friends that it hurt like a knife to the chest hearing how long it took her to recover. I love running, I really do. Running is the thing that has saved me every time I have fallen apart. It has picked my up when I'm down, helped me solve problems, right wrongs, plan courses of action, and teach me lessons. I don't know who I am if I am not a runner. This poem is one of my favorite poems of all time; I identify with what she is saying more and more every day, month, year that I am alive. I don't know who I am if I don't run and now I don't run at all. Not only do I not run, but I won't physically be able to run for a very very long time. That honestly scares the shit out of me. But again there is always a bright side: I may not be able to run, but I can walk. I have two mostly working legs. And I need to find a way to make my brain be grateful for what I do have. 

Every time I've had a serious injury before in my life which would impede my ability to exercise, I was a disaster. When I ruptured the tendon in my foot two years ago, I was a mess. Running was my life then, it consumed every piece of me. Not running meant too many scary things to count. But in the end, I found pool running and I survived. But as soon as I was able to run again, I clearly remember being grateful for all of two minutes and then immediately start pushing on ahead to run faster and further like I had never been inured. I was so focused on getting back to running that I never used that time to stop, breathe, and evaluate my mental relationship with my sports. 

It's amazing how we can make ourselves crazy with something, how we see a setback as a disaster instead of a challenge. I was so obsessed with running before that when I was hurt and couldn't run, I fell apart. I was a huge mess. I beat myself up about it every day, 'this is your fault, you clearly don't work hard enough and didn't train properly and got hurt. You're stupid and deserve to have hurt yourself.' It was a very unhealthy mindset to have. I eventually had no choice, but to accept the healing process and deal with it. I both did and didn't do this. I found another outlet for my intensity in pool running. I woke up every morning and was in the pool for about 2 hours each day. Then the instant I was able to run again, I was right back out there on the trail. 

At the time, I viewed my tendon injury as an annoying inconvenience, and once healed I moved on with my life. Then life twists and turns and I end up here, about two months post severe ankle sprain, and I feel like things were very different this time around. This time I found a way to keep climbing (even though it was one legged), I discovered the stationary bike (although it's not my favorite thing to do), I started swimming and pool running again, and I focused my crossfit workouts to be core intensive and did them several times a week. While I do everything in my life to a rather intense degree, I approached injury differently this time. I was more at peace with it. I did my intense workouts, swam for a long time, and did the endurance climbing (yep, with the boot), but my attitude toward it all is different this time. Maybe it was the love and support of my close friends and amazing family, maybe it was getting older and growing up some, or maybe it was that I have enough varied workouts that I didn't feel like my world collapsed when I was hurt this time around. It was all of these things, but the main point is that this time I didn't fall apart. Instead I became stronger. Just like my mantra 'Stronger Than This' and just like my tattoo on my back. 

So maybe that little tendon injury was prep for this. Maybe everything that led up to falling off the rock wall and destroying my right foot was prep for this. I dealt with this injury in a completely different way and seeing that has allowed me to see how much I've grown as a person in two years. I still have flaws, defects, and problems I will have to overcome, but I have grown quite a bit. Sometimes you have small moments of clarity, like my whole life has lead me up to this moment where the next decision I make is backed up by plenty of smart choices, laughs, disasters, trusting falls, patient waiting, tears, lessons learned, and teaching memories. I am getting better day by day at moving forward in a positive healthy way. 

Two months of physical healing, actually turned out to be two months of mental and emotional healing too. I won't lie, I am continually surprised at how I continue to respond in a positive way when people ask me about my ankle. I only had a few times where I got really upset about being injured, and I had a handful of people stepped up to the plate for me at those times. Those few people who were that friend who jumps down in the hole with me that I referenced in the last post, who helped show me the way out. I am grateful for their presence and roles as part of my life. But a lot of that healing was on me and was an internal battle. I know that I am hard on myself, and the last year was so damn hard. So when I got hurt, I gave up. I quit trying so damn hard at pushing in every direction and focused my attention in. I forgave myself for everything I'd done or not done, I learned from my mistakes, I took all that hurt that I was harboring and let it go, I grew up a little. 

Now I stand, albeit a little wobbly, here with about 26.5 years of memories and experiences and for the first time in a long long time, I feel whole. It's amazing to me how your attitude changes you. Every morning when you wake up you choose what kind of hour, day, month, year, and life that you will have. There will always be bad mixed with the good and our human nature allows us to dwell on those bad times more than the good ones. We often will search for what we did wrong or what we could have changed, rather than accepting the past and moving forward. It's easier, somehow, to look back and feel remorseful than look forward at the unknown. But I am done with that. I am done looking back. It's been a long time since I've looked forward to the life that is out there and felt hopeful for the adventure that lies ahead. I can honestly say that this injury to my ankle is the best thing that's ever happened to me, because I know where I was, I have watched how I've handled the healing, and I am grateful for how it will help me move forward. 

So my advice? Take each day as it comes, but choose to find the good. There are enough people, situations, and things that will try to drag you down to a negative space. There are people who will put you down, or tell you you're not good enough or as good as someone else. But the only person I ever need to compare myself to is the person I was yesterday, last month, last year, and the year before that. I just need to be the best me I can be today. So you choose how you feel, and no one else can make you whole for you. That is on your shoulders and at your finger tips. Find something good in every day.  

You choose your life.