Deja vu, all over again

Last week I broke my toe. The pinky toe on my left foot.

I was restoring some beautiful oak drawers that I salvaged from an old desk and dropped a large piece on my foot. I did have sneakers on but, of course, it hit at just the right unprotected spot.  I believe a few choice expletives may have escaped my lips. Although, I wonder, if a curse word falls in the garage with no one around, does it make a sound?

Anyway, my toe is swollen and half my foot is purple.  It has been somewhat triggering for me as it is the same foot that was smashed years ago during the attack.  If I stay off the foot I am in no pain. But as soon as I stand or walk on it, pain shoots from my foot to my brain. While I do appreciate and celebrate that I no longer curl into a ball and retreat into a non-responsive, PTSD quivering mess anymore, this triggering is causing my brain to flash ugly images of that day, like a ViewMaster going off in my head.

For a long time I wanted to feel this kind of pain, physical and mental, as a kind of self punishment. But I am over that. Long over that. Now, although I never want to forget what happened, I no longer want the graphic images popping up uninvited.  They are not pleasant and I wish I could get them to stop. It is taking a lot of energy to not have them effect me. I need my foot to heal and to heal quickly.  

On another note, one would think that when one broke a toe and had a lot of foot pain, that other family members might step up and offer to walk the dog.  Nope. Not even the daughter who brought her dog home for Thanksgiving.  Two dogs needing exercise, not one offer to help. And so I strapped on my high top hiking boots to stabilize the foot and limped around the block with two dogs pulling me along. Sometimes I do not like my family.

Anyway, this recent episode has me thinking that when I had breast reconstruction, I should have gotten double D’s instead of the small, never need to wear a bra, implants I did get. I think perhaps large implants would have stopped all the things I am constantly dropping on my feet.  Constantly!

Also, this injury is killing my daily step goals - down from 12,000 to 4,000. Arrrgggghh.

But as you can see, this post is going disintegrating into a whiny mess so I will say adieu.

Full of Grace

A furnace repairman who showed up before I, or the pipes, froze.

A new toilet handle.  It sounds like such a simple thing but the design is luxurious and it has solved the problem of the constantly running toilet.

A kitten who loves to sit on my lap when I’m on the john.  Kind of weird but an unexpected benefit on these unseasonably cold mornings.

Peachie and her boyfriend just bought their first house together . . . with a guest bedroom.

Beaner just won the job of her dreams. . . in a school with summers off, great benefits and a significant raise.

It is an ever amazing thing to watch my children successfully grow into themselves. Life is good.

The Starfish Story

A quick walk around the web will quickly depress anyone these days.  People are feeling overwhelmed in the midst of the constant barrage of hate and divisiveness that has become our country.   It’s so easy to get stuck in helplessness and despair.

You may have heard this story before but I think it is a good reminder that we can all make a difference.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must betens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)

I used to be very involved in politics and group activism until I became tired and very disillusioned. I’m not saying that those avenues to change are ineffective, but they can be slow and frustrating and disheartening. Since that time I have concentrated more on one to one activism, trying to help just one person at a time.  My work is not about changing an entire world or an institution or even a policy. It’s about touching one life around me in a way that hopefully makes a difference to them.  

So instead of being overwhelmed about what you can’t do, consider what you can do. What is one action you can take? For just one person?

We can all make a difference. . .  at least to one starfish at a time.