I started exercising again

While in free-fall, I've had a lot of time to readjust priorities and try different things.

About 2 weeks ago I broke out the old "PT Record" spreadsheet and renamed it "Exercise Menu" (as in, "Today I think I'll have a little from this column and a little from that column and a double helping of those."). I have a partner who is helping me with accountability and I send him a little summary each day. It's been a slow ramp-up, but I'm starting to feel neglected muscle tissue waking up again. I stretch and find different points of resistance. I lift things and feel sore, but strong.

But that's not the only kind of exercise. I've also been growing my heart, mind, and spirit. There have been some major shifts in a couple of my relationships and I've been trusting my spirit to handle them with grace and ease. Letting go without resentment takes a lot of practice, and even if I remember how that doesn't mean it's painless at the time. I'm waking up into a new shape of consciousness. I stretch and find different points of resistance. I make connections and feel sore, but securely connected to my Source. This life of mine is so very blessed.

Potential and Kinetic Metaphors

Roller-coaster metaphors have been popping up around me a lot over the last few days. And while they do seem to match this particular part of my life path, I'm really not fond of them. The jostling, the racket of the track which never changes, being surrounded by people having the same ride and screaming their own experience into the air. That's *really* not my cup of tea.

I've been describing this period of impending transition as "Taking a leap with all the materials necessary to build a parachute on the way down." While it's funny and gets most of my point across, it's not exactly the metaphor I'm looking for either. Even though I don't know what's out there and I'm not sure how it's going to happen, I still believe pretty strongly that this leap is about creating and experiencing new heights much more than transforming potential energy into a wild kinetic ride only to land (hopefully softly) on the ground somewhere below.

There is A LOT of faith involved in making my current life choices. It's the kind of faith that invites fear to get the hell out of the way. It's not that I'm fearless or reckless or even particularly courageous. It's that my life is so full of love and blessing that I really don't have much choice but to know that things will work out in their highest and best good.

So, no. This is not a roller-coaster. And these materials aren't for a parachute after all. This is a hang-glider I'm building, and soon I'll be soaring with the eagles. This is stepping off a cliff knowing that my body and support system will be able to sense and ride on the invisible but powerful thermals that are just waiting out there to lift us up.

This is my love-note to all the people in my life who make up my hang-glider. The ones who stand straight and strong against the buffeting gusts. The ones who wrap close and hold tight. The ones who stretch wide and flutter and giggle in the breezes. The ones who bend into the wind and help me get where I think I want to go. Thank you for making the space and time for me to try my wings.

This is also a love-note to Spirit. Who sings in my heart, whispers in my ear, and lifts my feet off the ground.

It is the wind asking me "How good can you stand it?"
And my reply, "Even more than I can imagine tonight!"

Things to love about my life

I just felt the urge to send a little love text. I typed it out on my not-smart phone. I went to select recipients. The top 5 most recent correspondents are automatically at the top of my list for easy communication on the not-smart phone. Every single one of them merits a late-night love text. AND I still had one more that I needed to search my contacts list for because there are 6 (SIX!!) people in my life that I love in a late-night love-text kind of way.

My life is AWESOME.

Oh and... Bang 4 the Buck is tomorrow night. If you identify as female, get your butt down there! Kaylee and I have an... arresting number prepared.

Thanksgiving Benchmarks

This has been an interesting and informative holiday break.

Last year at this time, I was just about 2 months out from surgery and doing quite well.
This Thanksgiving, I spent a lot of time working in Kaylee's kitchen and making little notes about how much has changed. Besides the addition of Tony to our Thanksgiving celebration, the best improvement this year was that I could handle all the heavy pots on my own. I remember how frustrating it was to try to make the "Best Mac'n'Cheese Evar!" while having to ask other people for help draining the pasta and moving pans around. I'm still pretty conscious of which muscles I'm using when I lift heavy things, but it's more out of a learned awareness than imminent danger of damaging myself.

Other things have gotten better too. There's a girl out there who can confirm with certainty that, as of last night, I have zero trouble moving around a bed. The couch risers have been stowed away so long that I was surprised to find them while cleaning house for a small party yesterday.

When I dug into the archives looking for last year's Thanksgiving status update, I found a couple other posts. Some things change but others stay the same. I still have that piece of hardware creating a lump on my back, and I'm still struggling to stick to plans of exercising to maintain my upper back and shoulders. But hey, what would life be without a few consistent plot lines?

It Worked?!

Recently I've had a couple strange ideas that I resisted acting on for a short while and then thought: "What the hell, lets give it a shot."

Now I find myself a little stunned that they both worked with better than expected results. I'm not sure what kind of charm I've got going, but I think I should continue to make good use of it for as long as possible.

Go go gadget weird idea manifestation!

My life is Awesome!

Okay, overall it's just about as awesome as most other people's lives. BUT the past weekend was particularly demonstrative of my life's unique flavor or awesomeness.

The week was stressful at work, not all bad stress, mostly high-intensity, "this is what we spend all year getting ready to do" kind of stress. Still Russell and I managed to have a nice dinner before Grind (the beginning of my weekend). Then, because I didn't have any actual responsibilities at this particular Grind, I went home to consult my closet about the night's costume.

I wasn't sure whether Tony (formerly known as Mr. NRE) was even going to attend Grind, so I approached my closet looking for something fun, but that would not be so cool as to be disappointing should he miss the opportunity to appreciate the outfit. Much as I wanted to go with a low-risk standard, there was a costume piece that refused to be denied any longer. The boots. As in my platform-heeled, lace-up-the-back, zip-up-the-front, I've-fallen-on-my-butt-more-than-once-while-dancing-in-them boots. I figured I had at least a couple more weeks before they demanded to be worn since I did take them out on a short test-run at SEAF. But NO these boots can get down-right bossy and demanded a serious high-femme outfit to set them off that night.

So I quickly sent a irresistibly tempting photo message to Tony hoping to insure he would show up, put myself together and out the door I went (with boots in hand because while they're bossy they were no where near convincing enough about their comfort and stability to keep me from wearing back-up shoes).

The boots did make it out on the dance floor. I did not fall on my ass. Tony did show up. And he was mightily appreciative of the outfit.

With the exception of a being a little extra cautious when the floor got crowded, it was almost as if I'd never had the surgery. My back didn't even get sore after all that dancing and balancing with a weird center of gravity.

That's all very nice, but here's where the awesomeness really starts:

On Saturday morning, I got to share breakfast with Max for the first time in much too long. He's been out of town and I've been a little tougher to schedule lately. Fortunately we had the good sense to share breakfast in private so we could enjoy each other and "what-not" without trying to maintain a vanilla exterior.

Oddly though, by the time I got home after sharing breakfast with Max, I was perhaps even a little more hungry than I was before breakfast. So Russell and I went out to lunch together and made plans for the way we wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon. Things didn't go exactly as planned but we really didn't mind. Honestly, what's not to like about an afternoon spent on very focused snuggling and "what-not," reading out loud, and sharing a pizza dinner while still naked in bed.

Then it was time for Russell and I to be on our separate ways. I was off to see opening night of a show that Tony was performing in. The show went quite well and Tony and I wrapped up the day with still more focused snuggling and "what-not."

That was significantly more "what-not" than I pack in to any given week on a regular basis, much less a single day and guess what... My back feels fine (my girl bits are a little cranky, but hey, there's a price for everything). Russell, Max, and Tony all spoiled me rotten on Saturday which is just what I needed to be ready to jump back in to the craziness at work today.

Seriously, my life is awesome!

Staying in place.

I had a nice walk to the clinic with Russell and then we sat down and waited...
Then Max showed up and we waited some more...
The majority of the staff was running around with that White Rabbit look in their eyes "I'm Late! I'm Late!"
We waited some more...
Jennifer, the amazing nurse of amazingness, eventually came out to lead us back to an exam room
Then she taped a light-weight metal ball to the lump in my back and sent me off for x-rays
I came back from the x-rays and Russell, Max, and I waited A LOT more...

Russell and Max must like me a whole awful lot, because neither of them is terribly comfortable staying in place for this long. We were all pretty tired and hungry by the time Dr. Williams made it to our room. So was Dr. Williams I imagine.

His first question was "Did I miss it?!" We have a mutual friend who spilled the beans about my SEAF entry and he was quite excited by this prospect. Clearly no segue was required to bring out the thank-you gifts. I presented the beautifully framed proof (thank you for all your help Robbie) and two pair of SEAF passes to a very delighted (if slightly harried at the end of his day) doctor and his nurse.

We didn't need to talk much about the x-rays or my progress because things are staying in place just exactly the way they should. The metal ball on my back confirmed that the hardware lump is the cross link and we can remove it easily enough, but it's probably best to wait until October or November. That creepy crunchy sensation people feel when I do my latest stupid human trick is a bursa that my body decided to grow over the hardwear to prevent wear and tear on the tissue around it. The human body is just freakin cool!

We discussed getting a masage therapy referral, but forgot to actually pass paperwork around at the end of the day. I'll call the office on Thursday and see about correcting that and make the next appointment for the beginning of July.

Oh! And!! I'll likely be cleared for Swing Dancing in 3 months! Yay! (yes all those exclamation points really are necessary)

6 Months

As of yesterday, it has been 6 months since Dr. Williams and company cut me open and put me back together again. It's remarkably hard for me to grasp this right now.

6 months?! Really?

Tonight's story actually goes back to just about a year ago.

I was kneeling in Max's dimly lit living room at the end of a delightful date trying to decide if it was time to tell him about my surgery planning process. We were certainly connected a year ago, but not so woven into each others' lives yet.

Sharing this would be crossing into much more intimate and explicitly long-term territory. It's one thing to bring chicken soup to a date who has a cold. It's entirely different to be invited into the preparation for major orthopedic surgery and long-term recovery processes. These are the kinds of reveals that put all that "I'll always be there for you" pillow talk to the test.

In reality there really wasn't a decision to be made so much as courage to be gathered. It's not like I was going to be able to keep this process outside of his awareness for very long. Even still, there's a difference between "I'm going to do this." and "Will you support me through this?" I was considering putting a lot out there on the line.

Then again, that's what we are about. I made a practice of offering him those fragile, vulnerable parts of myself from the beginning of this relationship. He accepted and used every bit of what I had to offer. This was just a slightly more sizable chunk.

So, with my head on his knee and his hand in my hair I screwed up the courage. I told him about my upcoming appointment and tried to present the situation in a way that allowed him to gracefully decline too much involvement without giving the impression that he was uninvited. Just as he had done every time before (and since), he accepted the invitation and held my vulnerabilities gently in the palm of his hand.



The books and bulletin boards I read when I started contemplating surgery all warned me of the impact it would have on relationships. There was this foreboding sense that some number of the people would fail and/or fall away when things got tough. I'm here to say that has not been my experience what so ever.

Not one single person turned away from me when I asked for help. In fact, I have the privilege of adding several people to my list of caring, supportive friends because of their willing involvement in my recovery process. Love has always been there for me, in whatever manifestation I needed it.

Bullet Round Update

Kinkfest: Yes, I went to Kinkfest. Russell and I only stayed for Friday and Saturday, but it worked out nicely for us overall. Here are some of the highlights.

• Quality drive time with Russell. We have some of our most productive idea sharing conversations on long drives like this.
  
• Our room was much better than the rooms we've had the last two years. (Turns out we were directly above Max and his family)
• Eating at Thai Noon. This is the most flavorful and friendly and nifty Thai restaurant I've ever been to. Russell and I were introduced to it during Kinkfest last year and it was definitely one of the big things we were looking forward to this year. Mango Sticky Rice!!!
• Being Max's. Conferences can be treacherous waters for poly families, there are A LOT of moving parts to keep track of in a very small and sometimes intensely loaded space. Fortunately everyone in our respective families plays nice and genuinely wants things to work out for everyone else. I am quite grateful to all parties involved for the time I was able to share with Max at this year's conference.
• Dangling above the ground from ropes for the first time since surgery. While the dangling portion of the scene was not the centerpiece of our scene in the dungeon, full suspension is a very notable recovery landmark. Max is a creative, talented man who had an intimate understanding of the risks and ways to minimize them. I'm not ready to let the rest of my friends with suspension bondage skills tie me up just yet.
• Good sex with Russell.
• Mo Williams' workshop on service. It seemed like this workshop was still in the development stages, but Mo is a fantastic story teller so that didn't really matter. It lacked detectable structure, but once I sat down to record the things worth remembering from the workshop I had a page full of notes and sound-bites.
• Sharing a snack picnic with a friend who also needed to avoid the hotel food. I was both happy to get chatting time with her and delighted that Russell and my preplanning paid off for one of our friends.
• Vendor fair purchase. Russell split the cost of one of these for me. Coming to a Grind near you sometime soon.
• One low-light: The drive home was in some spectacularly crummy weather. There was even snow for part of it.
  

SEAF (ok, mostly costuming stuff):

• I will be revealing the fact that the x-ray made it in to SEAF to my surgeon at the next appointment (about a week from now). I'm hoping to present smaller matted prints to him and his nurse as part of a thank you gift. I don't think they know about or read the blog, if they do I've just spoiled the surprise... oops
• I picked up an adhesive backless bra at Nordstroms on Thursday, insuring that the dress will fit better.
• Russell saw a test run of the dress and aproves.
• My budget for this event grew a little recently. Now I'm hoping to take the whole day before the Artists' Reception off to indulge in pampering and primping.

Physical/Medical Stuff:

• Lately I've been thinking "I could really go for a massage" but I'm not sure there are many massage therapists willing to work on someone with this much recently installed hardware. Most of the tightness is in my neck and shoulders though and that seems workable with a little information.
• The trip to Kinkfest also marked the longest drive since surgery, but that didn't cause any problems for me at all. (Hooray!)
• [edited to add] Oh, AND I made it to the gym the day after Kinkfest even though I had to work all day too. (last week's record wasn't so hot and I'm determined to get it moving back in the right direction)
  
• Overall, I feel pretty darn healthy and strong.
  

They Like Me! They Really Like Me!

I found the following message in my in-box when I got home from the WWC meeting tonight:

Dear Red:
We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected to show in the 2009 Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Your work was one of 215 pieces chosen from 2,100 submissions we received from 530 artists in 38 states and 29 countries. Congratulations!

Squeeeee!!!!

I'm sure I'll have a more adult response to this later.

Feeling good post-gym

I've made it to the gym 3 of the last 4 days. Tonight I'm feeling really good. Really really good. The muscles in my back feel strong and active, and the rest of my body is quite happy about the additional moving around. Even more than the physical, I'm feeling really good emotionally. I'm full of gratitude for the people at the forks in the road that brought me here today.

• To Dale who has provided quiet reassurance and friendly, loving perspective for nearly 10 years of this journey
• To Ernie who escorted me to my first play party and proved that not all the people one meets via the internet are psycho killers (even if they do suggest you meet them in a foreign country and attend a secret-ish event).
  
• To Seawandrr and Opium who opened their home and hearts to me and introduced me to so very many wonderful things about the kink community--including many of the people mentioned below
  
• To Bob whose love pulled me away from my cabin in the woods and into the big city permanently
  
• To Cat Tailor whose love, wisdom, wit, and passion helped me through the toughest parts of my Saturn Return
  
• To Maven whose love, patience, and honesty gave me the courage to change
• To Russell whose gifts are far too many to list here
• To Lauren who decided I was family
• To Kaylee who became the exception to most of my rules
• To Lorelie whose life has woven across mine some remarkable ways
  
• To Max who saw and accepted my offering
• To the friend of a friend whose short conversation with me gave me the confidence to quit poking around for second opinions and just do it
• To all the health-care professionals I've worked with over the last year every one of whom respected my honesty and encouraged my active participation in my own health-care
  
• To my employer who allows me to be honest about my way of life and provides kick-ass health benefits
  

It's hard to play the what-if game with one's history, but I'm quite certain that I'd be a very different person in a very different place were it not for each and every one of the people listed above. I look at this list and see many more people that I could fill in. My life is completely blessed by love and generosity. The people not listed here are no less important to the path I've wandered to get where I am today, I hope they know that too.

Slide Show

The link you've all been waiting for:
Kaylee and Red's (un)Dress Rehearsal
If you must be warned that this isn't work safe you're really beyond help.

Life is really good for me right now.
Healthy body,
Happy family,
Room to grow and the means to do it.

Bang for the Buck Report

Lorelie wrote up a nice over-all review of the night, so I'll lazily say "What she said" to my general impressions of the evening. And let me just say, my inseam was no where near as lucky as Lorelie's. I came home with one purple cock ring. Seriously?! What the hell am I supposed to do with that? (I have much too strong a sense of self-preservation to approach either of my penis-equipped partners with it.)

Kaylee and I were all business about getting ready from about 3:30 on. This makes for a very long evening.
I want to pause here to consider that Kaylee and I were only preparing for one 2-minute act in a much longer show and event. The organizers of Bang for the Buck are nothing short of goddesses for being able to set-up, run, and break-down this epic event while exuding fabulousness from every pore. I hope they were treated accordingly for the rest of this weekend.
We were costumed in time to do a run-through with our friend Travis to document our escapades. (someday he'll get me a disc with the pictures and I'll post them for you) Then quick out of those costumes and into our cover-costumes. I believe we only made 3 failed attempts for the door before we had everything we wanted with us. Lorilie already mentioned the epic traffic that would have made Kaylee and I late if it hadn't also affected everyone else. As it turned out, we were some of the first to arrive. Which meant we were also one of the first acts on the list.

Several nerve-wracking delays later, our song came on. And out we stepped in our perfectly ridiculous slutty engineer outfits. We had a blast, the audience had a blast and I got to show off my scar in a big way. Our fabulous MC, Miss Indigo Blue, kept referring to the many amazing "back stories" of the dancers on the stage without calling any out specifically. I'm not sure if she knew the whole of my back story or not.

It was great to see people I hadn't seen in a while and hear how impressed they were with my energy and mobility. It would not have happened that way without the support of my friends and family. I'm incredibly grateful for all the supportive words and energy I received along the way to that night. You all bless my life!

Kaylee's a Keeper

My back is chronically sore for the first time in a while. That's not what this post is about.

This post is about Kaylee and her awesomeness.

She conspired with Max to surprise me with a full day of yumminess on Monday. As is my nature, I did not exactly make it easy for her. I'm often one of those people who can see surprises coming long before they're supposed to. If I don't see them coming I have an uncanny ability to create scenarios in which the person is forced to reveal the surprise before they want to.

When I woke up, I thought my Monday was going to be a slow morning followed by noon brunch and girly stuff with Kaylee and concluded by a dinner with Max. I wanted to be able to squeeze in some gym time between the two dates, so I called Kaylee to see if we could move brunch up a little earlier and possibly eat in to save money. She seemed a little resistant to a change in plans, probably because she wasn't as awake as I was, and this didn't seem like the kind of thing worth pushing.

When she got to my place to pick me up, we did our usual doddling and pestering of Russell before leaving. Then as I was getting in the car Max appeared out of nowhere! At first I assumed this was a conicidence. I figured he parked near my place to go to one of the meetings he had planned for the day. THEN he got in the car with us.

The three of us had a very nice mellow day together. Kaylee and I ate silly quantities of sweet breakfast foods at brunch. We walked through a lake-side neighborhood. Then we headed back to Max's place and spent some nice quiet time in front of a fire enjoying each other's company. A truly delightful surprise.

In addition to being unbelievably cute, Kaylee is also the sweetest most loving girl I know. The joy she takes in seeing her loved ones happy is truly compelling. She's a bundle of creative energy that expresses itself in a myriad of sparkly ways. She's also extremely smart and highly capable. Kaylee's a keeper.

The 80/20 Rule

In my favorite class from grad-school ever ("Non-profit Management" of all things), I was introduced to the 80/20 rule. Essentially, when one embarks on a sizable task a vast majority (say 80%) of the progress is made during the initial piece (say 20%) of time and energy invested. This was used in the context of starting up non-profits and exercising. Part of the point of the discussion was to evaluate whether 80% was enough to meet the needs of the initial project thus freeing up a significant chunk of time and energy for other projects. It's hard for perfectionist, control-freaks like myself to grasp, but sometimes "good enough" is really truly "good enough" Other times though that 20% of change and improvement has a big enough over-all impact to merit the 80% energy investment.

At three months after surgery I feel like I'm 80% percent back. I can work full days, I can shake-it at Grind, and now Max can safely tie me up again. Basically, all systems are go.
So what might I spend the next 80% of my time and energy working to accomplish?
Growing a back bone (literally), regaining muscle, training my body to be flexible in different ways, increasing stamina, and other boring, slow-changing stuff. Also safely supporting my body while in full suspensions, picking on Kaylee until she wears out before me, wrestling with Russell, and swing dancing. Those are all things that fell solidly into the "not sure if I'll get them back" category when I started this journey, but I think well worth the effort.

And honestly, if I can get into this (NSFW) position just three months after being barely able to walk down the hallway, I don't see any reason not to keep going forward.

Thanks Lorelei

For my birthday, Lorelei gave me what is quite possibly the niftiest second-hand present ever. (link not work safe)

The boots, people, the boots! These are my very first pair of stompy boots ever. Hooray for gifted leather! Max took pictures of me wearing them for the first time, but I don't have those in my possession quite yet. I didn't think y'all'd mind a substitute picture for the time being.

They were a fairly gently worn second-hand store find that didn't quite fit her. To show my gratitude and affection, I promptly smothered them in Pecard Leather Dressing when I got them home. I may not have ever owned a pair of stompy boots, but between Russell and Max, I've had my fair share of boot care training.

I can't wait to wear them to the next Grind.

Perhaps you are saying "But what on earth does this have to do with scoliosis surgery?" (though more likely you stopped reading up at the second link) You've read mention of the difficulties of reaching one's feet after surgery already. Now visualize trying to lace up 20-hole Doc's with this same complication. And say, you did not have the foresight of Cadence to take all your clothing off before putting the nifty new stompy boots on. I had Lorelei's help for getting in, but then I needed Max's help to get back out. Max, with whom there is no ambiguity about our power dynamic what-so-ever, managed to find a very dominant method of unlacing those boots. Though I believe describing it may breach some kind of trade-secret agreement so I'll just have to leave that to your imaginations.

Edit: Here are my legs in my very first pair of stompy boots for the very first time.


Detail oriented people will note these are not precisely the same style as the ones you see on Cadence. The working theory is that this has to do with the "Made in England" seal on the bottom of my boots as opposed to most Doc's sold in the US which are now made in China.

Things to love about Russell

There are several posts here about my connection to Max. That's in large part due to the novelty of the dynamic. It's not the kind of partnership everyone has and this is a blog about being kinky and dealing with surgery/recovery stuff. However, this is also a blog about being poly, and I want to be sure that my other partnerships don't get lost in the shuffle. So today I bring you:

"Things to Love About Russell"

• You all did notice the bunch of posts he made while I was in surgery right? He took the time and energy to let the unknown number of readers of my blog know how things were progressing. How awesome is that?
• I love Russell like I love electricity. He makes so so so many things in my life simpler and happier. From hauling heavy laundry baskets to making tasty snacks, he's around and helpful almost all the time. I could possibly survive without him, but not for more than a day or two.
• Russell puts up with my whims. For example, right about the beginning of November I declared that I was going to have a Christmas tree this year no matter what. We both knew at the time that "no matter what" really meant "because I'll have your help to make it happen." He's not a big holiday person and the whole disruption of his nest for temporary decoration is not a trivial inconvenience for him. I don't know all the reasons he decided to put up with this, but I know the big one is he loves me.
• Russell is fun and easy to be with. We know each other. We can usually tell when it's time to poke and play and when it's just time to sit quietly together. We're pretty good at both things, but especially the sitting quietly together.
• Russell appreciates the things I add to his life too and he's really good about telling me.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of things to love about Russell, but it's a nice broad base from which to begin.

Did it!

Tuesday night I posted about going to PT and the ridiculous gymnastics my brain did essentially avoiding the homework I'd been assigned.

Wednesday morning, they didn't happen either.
Wednesday night I was still afraid of the damn things and now they were safely buried under a pile of other things. On the plus side, I did get a bunch of other housework done in the process of running away from the exercises. Frustrated with myself, I finally asked Max for help. (Thanks Autumn for the reminder that I could do that)

Thursday morning I continued to avoid them in the name of "getting ready for work."
Thursday evening I dodged them again in the name of "getting ready for Grind." (Grind was nice by the way. I had a couple people I'd never met before come up and talk to me about the x-rays I posted. I danced a fair bit. I got some extra encouraging PT words from a very attractive friend. I snuggled with Russell and groped Kaylee a little.)
After Grind though I was very aware that some part of my brain was still keeping score of the PT avoidance and making sure I knew what a bad person I was. Fortunately Kaylee snuggles are extra good medicine for that kind of thing.

This morning I had other pleasant distractions and valid reasons to keep avoiding the exercises before work.
This evening Max sent me an email that was mostly about something else but with a little direct sentence about dropping him a line when I finished my PT.
Ding! All of a sudden I was willing to push away most of the other reasons not to start.

I didn't jump up and do them right away after finishing my typical come-home routine. There was a good 30 minutes of futzing and prepping and rearranging and... Eventually, I was alone in my bedroom with the door closed so no one could see my mistakes. And then... I started. By the time I was doing the last couple exercises I wasn't fighting myself so hard. I was just doing it. The trick now is to not think about whether I'll do them tomorrow. Tonight I just want to announce: I FINALLY did it! I deserve a cookie! (Conveniently, there was a bake sale at work today so I've already had my cookie fix)

Dry spell is over!

On Thanksgiving, I worked and danced at Grind after spending all day cooking and enjoying the company of Russell, Kaylee and her husband. Then the next night, I had the first play-focused overnight date with Max in two months. I can confidently say I feel my life coming back in some of the most important ways. I have a mental image of a big wet thunderstorm washing over a dry and dusty town. I can almost smell it. (inside note: I'd go out and play in it more if I didn't hate getting water in my face so much *grins*)

That's not to say that my body is no longer full of frustrating quirks--things like I can dance off and on for hours but can't comfortably sit on my couch without the risers, or I can play to remarkably intense levels but can't easily change position in bed.

Hooray for OUT!

Okay, I'm heading to bed quickly, but I just wanted to say: Hooray!!! I got outside my 6-block radius all on my own.

I went to the Bondage is the Point party for a couple hours tonight. Hello to all of you I saw tonight and thank you so much the encouraging "OMG! You're doing so well!" remarks. It's really what I needed to keep to feeling like I'm moving forward. This was the right low-key party to start my gradual return to the Wetspot. No bondage for me tonight, but I wore an outfit that let me show off my scar and brought print-outs of my most recent x-rays for show and tell. The people, the tasty treats, they eye-candy, the careful hugs, but most of all the SMILES were just fantastic!

Mind you I was out of the house a full 3.5 hours and now I'm wiped, medicated, and ready for bed. Still, I'm definitely marking this up to a success. There was a lot of up and down out of couches, and standing around talking, and crouching to get water--not to mention the joys of driving.