Leave it to me to make a promise to blog every day in September, then have a surgery on my wrist. It turns out you need a wrist to type. This blog ambition is my way of making my mental health a priority, so I’m sticking to it, wrist brace and all.
I’ve been talking with my friend Dr. Hope Seidel lately, she’s a pediatrician, parent coach, and the best advice giver ever. When I was struggling recently she asked, “Can you find something perfect about this situation?”
My instinct was to be offended when she asked that question. We were going through something hard as a family, it felt far from perfect. But I paused, I zoomed out to look at the total picture of the circumstances and could see that yes, in fact, there was some perfection in the chaos. We had come together as a family, we were able to get perspective on the things that really matter. It was a slice of “perfect” in an otherwise dark time.
Rebranding Lazy
Now, here I sit. I’m on the couch with my computer on my lap. I’m typing mostly with my right hand and my dog has her chin on the corner of the computer. My hand is really sore but it’s fine. My family, thank goodness, was craving a slow Labor Day weekend so we’re parked in front of the TV, offended that Netflix keeps asking us if we’re still watching.
I have to fight the urge to “be productive” (whatever that means). Thanks to some pain meds I’m nice and groggy. Even under this haze, my instincts are to make sure the dishwasher is unloaded and that there’s a meal plan for the week. Even though no one in my family is asking me to do ANYTHING, it seems to be my default mode.
If I’m busy then I’m not lazy … and lazy is the worst, right? Wrong. I think the term “lazy” needs a rebrand. “Laziness” means having the ability but still being unwilling to work.
I have the ability to stand up right now, but I certainly don’t want to. Writing this blog doesn’t seem like a chore, it’s an act of resetting for me.
Resting is an activity. Watching 8 hours of a TV show is necessary some days. Endless “busy” leads to my frayed mental state, I’m sure of it.
So here I sit. I think I found something perfect in an otherwise painful experience. Lazy, for the win.
PS: What did I do to my wrist that required surgery? Welp, we’re pretty sure it was from the “leave no stone unturned” challenge on The Amazing Race. The challenge was to find a gold coin on the bottom of one of 5000 stones. It was grueling and it took me 2 and a half hours of flipping these heavy stones to find it. My wrists were swollen and in a lot of pain for the rest of the race. The medical team was amazing (no pun intended). My right wrist felt better eventually but my left wrist has been wonky since. The doctor can’t definitely say it was that particular task that caused the injury, and it doesn’t really matter how it happened, but there was an injury that needed repair. It’s super gross to even write about, but there was a bone that was out of place and a cyst type thing that formed around it. 🤮
Surgery was simple and recovery requires me to sit here with my family. The scar I will have will remind me of a time I so desperately wanted to quit and run away – but chose to fight through (even through pain) and persevere.
