February has to be the most difficult month. We are in the dead of winter. Snow is piling up, grey skies. My usual coping mechanism is to hie myself to the loom and work on something with saturated colour to counteract the fifty shades of grey.
This year I can’t. So I am trying hard to focus on the subtle beauty of the monochromatic view out the window, the sculptural shapes of the snow bound trees.
In the meantime Doug is the one dealing with moving it from here to there.
A steady flow of friends, either in person or on the phone or Internet has provided much needed gentle distraction. Every day sees a tiny step forward in healing. Recovery will be a multi-stage process with several milestones to be reached. The first is the six week mark when hopefully the sternum will be healed. Once that has been accomplished physio for the muscles will commence.
For now I am working on the second third of the first six weeks. Time does not stand still although its passage definitely feels relative. But the days do end, another day gets crossed off. I set myself conservative daily goals which I don’t always meet, but at least I do try. As a friend reminds me, almost daily because I need to hear it, the most important thing is healing, all else can wait.
But I still need to set my goals because I also need to stay focused on what comes after recovery. Life is a process and this experience is all a part of it. We live in amazing times. So many of my family members simply died from cardiac disease. I get another chance. Besides, I’ve got all that yarn to use up!
