My mom has taken to saying, "We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong." She says this when errands take longer than they should, when things fall or break, when people aren't as nice as we'd like them to be. "I'm too old to be cranky," she says. "I've decided to enjoy the rest of my life and I'm not going to let silly expectations get in the way."
I was thinking about this new attitude my mom has adopted during my recent physical therapy appointments. About two years ago, I woke up one day to a severe pain in my left shoulder. My doctor gave me an anti-inflammatory and pain medication and the pain subsided to a slight, but persistent soreness. Because my shoulder never really healed and because we happen to have it in our budget right now, I started going to physical therapy.
I have always loved physical therapy. When I was in 8th grade, my hips began a tug-of-war with my knees that damaged my knee caps. That was my first physical therapy experience. I liked learning those funny little exercises that would teach my thigh muscles be kinder to my knee caps. When I was in college, I sprained my right ankle during taekwondo practice and found myself back at physical therapy. My favorite part this time was the ultrasound therapy, "So that you don't have scar tissue inside your joint" or something like that, the tech explained. I loved physical therapy because, to me, it meant that if you work intentionally and persistently according to an intelligently designed plan, you can restore something broken to its original (unbroken) condition.
So I was excited to go back to physical therapy, especially after two years of discomfort and pain. With all my recent health issues, I've been working on eating better, resting more, taking vitamins and medicines on time. I've felt like my lifestyle, at least as it relates to health, has been spiraling out of control in the last five years or so, and I'm working on reigning it back in. This is great, I thought to myself as I arrived for my first appointment. This is what I need to get my life back in order.
I've met a lot of wonderful people during my physical therapy. This particular facility maintains a very open environment--moreso than any of the others I've been to. Three or four therapists work simultaneously in an open room with three or four patients each. So there are several of us there, stretching, contorting, grunting, struggling together through our respective injuries. I am often the youngest one there, barring the occasional high school athlete. Most of the other patients are older men and women, with knee and hip replacements, folks with car accident or work place injuries, lonely elderly women who fell in their kitchens.
My mom is right. "We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong." No one means for these injuries to happen. No one goes to work thinking, Today I am going to do something that will incapacitate me. But there we are, all of us, reporting our pain levels on a scale of 1 to 10, describing what we used to be able to do and what we can't do now.
I was deeply startled after my first visit about the extent of my injury. It comes from a combination of things: naturally loose joints, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, bad posture. I have been complaining about being out of shape for a long time, but I figured it would amount to high blood pressure and diabetes in my 50s, not a shoulder injury at 25. "Two years is a long time to be injured," the therapist told me. "It's going to take a while to heal." If I am in this poor a condition now, what will 50 look like?
On Monday, I'll be going in for my twelfth visit. I've been going twice a week for six weeks, and overall, I have to say it's been helpful. Those funny little exercises are making my back stronger and correcting my posture. My pain on most days is at a 3 or 4 instead of a 6 or 7. But I am realizing that I am going to have to adjust my expectations. There is no going back to 19-year-old Elena, no going back to 25-year-old Elena, that I can't click an "optimize" button or a "auto-restore" button. Surely, the steps I've taken to reel-in my health habits are important and valuable and will help decrease my chances of further illness or injury. But I can't fix me and lock my settings and expect to live illness and injury free for the rest of forever, no matter how persistent, intentional, or intelligently designed my plan is. And even if I could click that "optimize" button, I can't keep from car accidents or work place injuries or falling in my kitchen.
"We live in a fallen world, Elena, things are bound to go wrong," my mother says. "And I've decided I'm going to enjoy the rest
of my life and I'm not going to let silly expectations get in the way."
I am learning to let go of silly expectations. I am learning to set realistic goals instead.
I am learning to be pleased with progress and to relish Grace and Mercy.
I am learning to hope and long for Heaven, where there is no pain and no decay, only Glory and Peace.
And I am learning to enjoy my life. I think I'm too old to be cranky, too.
