* getting used to feeling (more) normal again

I helped someone the other day get to and from a doctor’s follow-up appointment. They had had a fairly complex surgical procedure done that, for a variety of reasons, has taken awhile to recover from. But they are doing oh so much better now. As I mostly just drove them to and from (ain’t no one asking for my type of doctoral expertise for this sort of thing, nor should they!), I had time to reflect a bit on the whole concept of getting used to feeling more normal again, as this was part of the transition this person was going through as they slowly healed from their surgery.

I’m old enough now to have had several times when things weren’t normal for some time and it took some time to get back there. For example both times I’ve had hepatitis (which I don’t recommend even doing once) it didn’t take very long at all to get quite sick and lose a lot of weight. The recovery, on the other hand, was a whole different journey. It was much easier to proclaim I was back to normal than it was to actually get there.

Not unlike many of those approaching their 60s (how is that even possible?!), “being healthy” is in an interesting process of evolving, in at least some ways it feels, more rapidly than it did for awhile. As in what “health” means to me now is oh so different than what it meant back in my youth. And it means getting old enough to find out some of the more mysterious aspects of how one’s body is deciding to do things now at this point in time. So in my own ways I’m presently at a point where I’m working on the whole concept of learning what “feeling more normal” for me means. What do I still have from days of old? And what do I need to realize I may have had to say goodbye to, in some cases, now quite a few years ago? And what are some of the new aspects to this new “normal”? Wise people tell me to take my time, be patient, go with the flow, etc. And that is wisdom. I’m just not very good at and/or patient with it.

But I really don’t have that much of a choice. So here’s to doing better with the wisdom I’m given.