Uma Therman is My Spirit Animal

A lot has been happening to me the last couple of days .. week .. couple of months .. this year. I started out with a sense of optimism that this was going to be a a laughably easy year: I finally found my bearings in a new city, had a great job, just started a new hobby (Inti Ombak Pencak Silat), had a couple semesters of my Bachelors under my belt.. and had this as my status on Facebook:

Not this year but the next I will have my Masters, Bachelors, and CPA, plus we will be headed back to California. This year is an investment period; time to become the best I can get emotionally, physically.. optimistically! I feel in a much better place than I was this time last year so I am encouraged.

What could possibly go wrong?

Obviously then this happened:

I tore my ACL and subsequently had my very first surgery, my very first time on crutches, and a hell of a lot of snow. Each point of my progress, things got more difficult than the point before. I have to admit that the easiest part of all of this experience was the few days immediately after surgery, when I was drugged out of my mind. That is my only drug memory I look back on fondly, come to think of it (but then coming off of it was something I never want to do again, so there's that). The consumption of time that physical therapy took (and continues to take), combined with juggling many schedules trying to compensate, classes/homework/projects, mentoring, teaching, and exhaustion/pain resulted in me leaving my lovely job.

It is now May and I am about 2/3rds of the way through the physical therapy regiment. Before it all I was leg pressing 200 pounds. My first time after surgery was pure agony lifting 60 pounds..  it was so disheartening. Now I am at 180 (and 100 on one leg)! Today, though, things turned amazing.

I started running. I have always had a strong dislike for running; it is high impact and hurts my heart after a while, it makes me cough and gives me a headache, it gets boring moving so slowly and I always end up tripping over something. But it was taken away and replaced with careful, agonizingly slow stepping and being hyper aware of everyone around me at all times (my biggest fear on campus was an idiot on a bicycle running into me and tearing my graft). Today, though, I was on the treadmill facing a mirror, and I could see the full impact of losing nearly 60 pounds of weight, I could breathe because my legs were strong, and I was faster than I have been in four months. My physical therapist was so impressed that he said my right leg (the bad one) was running even better than my other leg! He shook his head in disbelief! This wasn't my biggest moment of freedom, however.

This was my biggest enemy:

I had to jump up on it (raised about 8 inches), jump off, then jump forward, landing in a squatting position. Physically, not terribly impressive I admit. Psychologically it was the toughest moment of my entire experience (which is saying a lot). For months every instinct has been focused on protecting my leg, learning to walk and lift high enough to walk on stairs, carefully (carefully!!) place each step so I don't tear the graft by pivoting or putting to much impact on my knee. Suddenly I was tasked with jumping (for the first time in months (or "fftm" for short)) up a step (fftm) and landing with the full impact of my weight (fftm).. five times in a row. Staring down at that thing I felt I had a better chance reciting an Italian opera word for word from memory, and I don't know Italian. The therapist (Eric) saw me struggling and even offered to lower the height if I wanted, but no: I do things the hard way or why bother. I don't know how, but I did it. There aren't words to express the willpower it took, but nothing has ever taken that much in my life, and I have been tested. 

That's not even the best part! Eric let me know that it is only 2 and a half months until I can prove to the surgeon that I am a fully fledged human being through a series of physical tests (as ya do) and he will say the words I have been coveting for literally several moons: "no restrictions." I will get back to silat full fledged. I will kick and punch and pivot my little heart out because, even though this happened in silat, it is truly the only thing that keeps me going back to the Rec center, pushing my leg to the point where it feels like it is about to break 30 times in a row for 7 different machines and become exhausted for the rest of the day. It is how I justify the loss of my job. It is the only thing that still makes me feel powerful and something that is my choice to do. Today (well, literally yesterday), I still cry after 10 minutes of only upper body work, but my passion and enthusiasm keep me determined for tomorrow (figuratively).

I will become a black belt. I will be my own master.