Can Never Go Home Again

As part of my work, I hear a lot of presentations aimed at senior citizen audiences. Today, I heard a speaker on proper posture. He discussed healthy ways to pick things up off the floor, the best way to shovel/rake leaves without causing injury, etc. At 34, I shouldn't have to worry about my body the way an 80 year old should, but I do. This back condition has made me a little afraid of what can happen to my body - anything that could happen to my body. I'm no longer under the delusion that I am young and nothing can hurt me. I now know that bad things can and do happen to your body that change your entire way of life.

The desire to go back home again to my way of being and thinking before my back started hurting makes me feel sad and creates a longing in me as if I'm remembering someone who has died. In a way, someone did die, the Melissa who didn't even have chronic pain on the radar, the Melissa whose body hadn't failed her. . . yet. I long for the woman who didn't know what life had in store for her body. What would I tell the Melissa who wasn't hurting yet? Enjoy your life now. Life is precarious. You're going to need a lot of strength for this, girl! CARPE DIEM! Brace yourself - this is going to hurt you more than you can imagine in obvious and not so obvious ways.

I truly wish I had appreciated the life I had before pain became an everyday way of life for me, but I don't wish I had known what was ahead of me. It is better to focus on today, not what happened or didn't happen in the past and certainly not what things might happen to you in the future. So, I guess I would tell the old Melissa, live for today. It is a gift! I need to be reminded not to worry about what might happen to me physically down the road. I need to relax and enjoy what I have today NO MATTER WHAT. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to be a better day. We can only hope that it is.