December 5 Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

Things were going along pretty swimmingly this year until about the middle of October. I was pleased as punch that a new phase of my life had just begun and I was loving the way everything was unfolding.  Then I flat fell on my face — as many of you already know — and broke my knee cap.  From that moment on, I’ve been letting a whole lots of things go, like:

• the pride that normally prevents me from asking for help. Not being able to put on my own shoes or do my own grocery shopping was humbling, but forced me to admit that I can’t do everything myself.
• my schedule. Between starting my doctoral program, meeting lots of new people, and commuting to Hamburg on the weekends, I barely saw the insides of the apartment I’m renting in Bremen. Boy, did that ever change — especially during those first couple weeks, where I basically just sat in bed.  As I heal and ease back into my old life, I’m trying to be more conscious of what I fill my days with.
• multi-tasking.  Nearly impossible with crutches, let me tell you.  If I make a cup of coffee, I’ve got to sit in the kitchen and drink it.  Although I’m loathe to admit this, sometimes life is just better when you’re doing one thing at a time.
• well-laid plans.  I wanted to start off my doctoral work with a bang of activity.  Keeping up with the seminar readings while propped up in bed was not exactly what I had in mind.  So I’ve had to adapt and make it all fit with reality.
• impatience.  Even now that I’m pretty mobile and relatively adept with the crutches, I am unbelievably slow. I can’t tell you how many busses and trams I’ve seen pass me by, simply because I couldn’t hobble fast enough.  This drives me insane. I like to think of myself as a rather patient person, but it turns out that I’m pretty impatient with myself.  This, however, has to go.  Physical therapy to re-learn how to bend my leg (am now up to 90 degrees!) and how to walk again has been a long lesson in having patience with myself and the healing process. And I think it might be finally starting to sink in. I’m still quite a ways from being able to do everything I could before mid-October, but I see progress every day.

If I can take away these few life lessons from this experience, then maybe these last few months will have been worth all the trouble after all.

–

This post is part of Reverb 10, a process of reflecting and manifesting during the entire month of December.  You can join over here!