Pieces and places fitting back together...?

It has taken a while, everything is slowly beginning to get its natural order back.  It feels wonderful.  Surprisingly, for the first time in ages and ages, it doesn't feel weird or out of place that things are getting back to normal and life has its flow back.  I don't feel like I don't deserve to have normalcy or that happiness is for other people.  This time the hard fought battle through depression and pain has left me with a calmness that is a little out-of-the-ordinary for me, but, at the same time, it has given me a wonderful sense of another one down. 

It's kind of like looking at the long miles ahead and knowing there is a place you are nearing and the end of the journey is at hand and you realize you can keep going and you are going to reach your destination.  Now I realize it isn't all about how quickly it is going to take me to get where I am going, but just getting there.  Speed bumps and road blocks and detours aside, I am quite tired of hurrying through everything.  I'm going to take my time from here on out.  The rest of what is left to me is just going to be for enjoying what has been given to me, and I think that is actually quite fair. 

This last piece, this "not hurrying" piece, was the newest piece to actually fall into place this time.  Not feeling like I am missing out on life and living was the biggest surprise I have actually come to have.  Since the pain has eased up so much and I can breathe again in a much better sense of peace, my thoughts, I've noticed, have changed to enjoying what is around me and within me because the pain that has left me (thank You God) could rip the Soul out of the body if it had stayed much longer.  It sounds melodramatic doesn't it. It sounds like a monster doesn't it.  Sort of like I was living with a monster.  Like I was living a melodramatic nightmare of pretend something...but it wasn't in the slightest.

 I know monsters are real, and sometimes you can't get away from them like you hope you can, because they live inside you, with you; but they can be defeated, but not always by you.  It takes miracles sometimes.  When they are gone, though, that is when you understand what true freedom is all about.  At the same time, everyone else around you keeps going on about their daily routines because they don't know, they have no reference point of where you have come from.  Quite honestly, this is perfectly fine, because if they had such a reference point how sad would that be? ( If you genuinely care for someone, you would never wish that sort of pain and misery on them; even if you had an enemy I am not sure you would truly wish them such pain.) Then, as it dawns slowly that the pain is truly gone for a while (because you can never accept the pain is gone forever) and the pieces of your life fall back into place, just a little differently, new truths can be seen about yourself you didn't know before.

Like, for instance, I really like historical romance novels.  I don't know if I never just admitted it to myself before out of pride or if I never really did just acknowledge it before.  I wouldn't even mind trying to write one.  Yes, dears, please don't fall off your chairs.  When I realized it I just sat still and said, "How interesting."  It really shouldn't have surprised me, since it was about me, but it did.

Another piece that has fallen into place has been knitting.  I've picked up the needles again and have begun knitting a piece I am  going to felt.  A pillow for my neck.  Yes, I could go and purchase some felt already, but it wouldn't be contoured exactly for my neck like I can make it with my own needles for my own neck.  It is going to take quite a few hours and it is going to make my hands tired, but if it helps relieve the pressure in my neck, Why not?  If it works for me, then I can write down the pattern and put it here or on the knitting blog and perhaps it can help someone else who may have the same or similar problems with their neck.

Two big pieces that came smashing into place has been tai chi and qigong.  We already know how much I love qigong, but tai chi has surprised me.  I made a decision with my tai chi:  I am not giving up on my tai chi.  I am going to continue to practice it from my chair and I am going to be the very best I can be at it from my chair.  I will never ever be able to test like Hubby and all the rest.  It used to make me sad, this truth, but it's OK now, because if I can show other people in wheelchairs and on crutches what I can do from my wheelchair and give them help, then it is worth all of the hard work I am putting into it, because as I am helping myself, perhaps I am also helping someone else.  Don't get me wrong either:  I am not a gallant soul, everything I am doing in tai chi is hard as heck for me to do because my body doesn't want to move the way the movements are meant to go; however, if I can get my body to go as close to the way as it is supposed to go, perhaps others will see how beneficial it is and how much it does help and join in its practice from chairs as well.  Or from crutches.

For the first time in my life I am actually letting myself truly get excited about a martial art.  Genuinely excited.  And, for the first time in my life there are teachers who aren't just blowing smoke up my ass or telling me beautiful fairy tales, but genuinely pushing me as hard as they are pushing the other students to learn the form and helping me adjust a movement here or there to get the same benefit of tai chi chuan from my chair.  It is remarkable how much I am learning, how my strength is growing, how my energy is growing, and how frustrated I am getting over certain moves that don't want to go into the right places and Hubby laughs and so do other students who are ahead of me because they had the same problems in the same places, except they had to worry about their feet, too!  Egad!

God was holding all of the pieces of my life so patiently, waiting for me to be able to handle it again, and when I was, added depth and flavor the likes of which I could never have dreamed of before.  This time, there is an even wider field of common ground for me and Hubby to share that is unbelievable because all of the pieces and their places came fitting back together just a little bit differently.