Seeking Perfection

It kills me that I have so many weaknesses.  It especially kills me that I have so many weaknesses, and I'm so OLD.  Really, I look back at my grandparents whom I met when they were in their late 50's, and they were perfect.  Even looking back now, I can't think of anything that was weak or bad about them.  If I'm going to be like them, I've got a whole lot of perfecting to do over the next ten years!

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I can't see who or what I am at any given moment.  I always see myself as needing so much improvement.  The best example I can think of involves my concerns about my weight.  I look back on myself after each of my babies, and I thought I was SO FAT.  Like, I couldn't wait to remove those twenty extra pounds from my body.

Now?  What I wouldn't GIVE to be that weight again.  I looked fabulous!  Why couldn't I see it then?

Or, when I finished my two full marathons.  I thought I was such a LOSER because I finished so slowly.

Oh my goodness, why couldn't I have just rejoiced in that fact that I actually finished TWO FULL MARATHONS, because my body won't let me do that at all now.  I was awesome!

Today, this picture popped up on my FB wall:

That is me, six years ago, with a broken ankle.  In fact, I suspect that if I went back to my old blog, I would find this picture posted somewhere.

I had broken my ankle just two weeks earlier. I broke my fibula in two places, and the ankle itself.  At least, I think that's what was broken, but because I was on so many drugs, I can't actually remember.  I had sat in a splint for four days, and then had surgery.  I had ten pins and a plate holding everything together.  See the black strap around my ankle?  It was an ultrasound machine that supposedly promotes faster healing.  I had to wear that 12 hours a day...and it actually recorded how long I wore it so that my orthopedic surgeon could check up on me.  I was on a butt-load of narcotics for the pain.

Six months earlier, I had rented a house at Interlochen.  Mark and Hannie were boarding campers, and I wanted to be there for the final week.  I couldn't get any of my money back, nor did I really want to, so I determined to drive myself (and Glo) there.

Anytime I headed out, I would drive with my right ankle propped up (got to keep it elevated, right), and my left foot would actually operate the pedals.  If you think this is easy, I challenge you to go out and just drive around your town for 20 minutes with only your left foot.  It's a complete retraining of the brain, and I wonder if I would have done it so successfully if I wasn't a pianist (go instruments that teach you to use both sides of your brain together!).  For this trip, I was under strict instructions by my doctor to stop every hour so that I could get out and move--he didn't want any blood clots or unnecessary swelling.  Actually, I think he told me NOT to make the trip at all, but I think he knew I wasn't going to listen to that.  And we all know the warnings on pain killers about driving.  It's actually a DUI, driving on narcotics.

So, this trip promised to be a doozy.  I stopped taking the narcotics for the six hours I drove over the two days.  And I kept the ultrasound machine going.  And what should have taken six hours generally took eight.

What you can't see in this picture is that my scooter is tucked behind the front seats, and Glo was squished in behind the scooter.  Every time we stopped, she had to climb over the scooter to get out the door, and then get the scooter out and bring it over to me.  She was only ten years old.  And I had to either unhook myself from the ultrasound machine, or put the battery and counter in my basket and make sure it stayed connected.

I remember feeling incredibly weak during this time in my life.  I couldn't cook or even load the dishwasher (or navigate the kitchen at all).  Going up stairs was backwards on my butt.  I had to slide around my house either on my scooter or on a rolling chair (and believe me, I fell many times).  I lived chronically sweaty because of all the effort it required to move at all (especially getting out of the car and going grocery shopping), and because of the narcotics.  Bathing was the absolute worst.

And yet I see now that I was all kinds of strong.

I went upstairs backwards on my butt.  You should have seen my arms at the end of it all.

I didn't just sit in a chair resting like I should have, but I pushed myself around on a rolling chair.  Do you know how dangerous that is?

I went grocery shopping.  Yep, on a scooter that I had to get out of the car myself.

I took baths.  Do you know how slippery a tub is after bathing?  Do you know how many times I fell getting out of the bathtub?

And I distinctly remember leading Primary singing time while standing balanced on one leg on my scooter.

I didn't accept help from anyone, but instead, hired a cleaning lady to come in once a week to do the vacuuming.

Oh, and let's not forget that I still drove my kids to their lessons in Philadelphia.  A 4.5 hour drive one way, either going 80 on the turnpike, or driving through rush hour traffic....with my left foot.

Why couldn't I see how strong I was? 

So, I'm always trying to learn from my mistakes (and goodness, I have a lot of them).  In what area of my life now am I thinking I'm weak, but in actuality I should be focused on how strong I am?

I'd better figure it out soon, because I only have ten more years to become perfect....