It’s Good to be Home
Being gone for four days and three nights is not the norm for me. Here is the rest of the story. It didn’t surprise me when I had a difficult time falling to sleep last night. In reality, I hurt too much to find a place to settle into. Nothing serious, nothing that I knew wouldn’t get better.
I was a good participant of the group at the Quilted Steeple. We were up and in the church basement by 8:30 in the morning, and it was usually midnight or later when we found our way in the pitch dark to the parsonage where our beds were. I had brought along various projects. Most of what was going to be sewn was already cut out here at home and packed as a kit. My fail safe was the quilt blocks to sew on in between the cross fit body bag and the wallets. I can spend a lot of time sewing straight seam for quilt blocks.
I didn’t realize until the morning of the third day that though I was sitting on a similar chair that I had at home, the table was higher and the chair was as high as it would go. It was a reach to touch the sewing machine. The floor was carpeted and as I said on the beginning of the third day, I realized how much umph it had taken to push myself while sitting in the chair over the carpeting from one end of my 10 foot table to the other. That third morning I found out the rest of the story as I faced the day. With those two factors, my neck and shoulders and my hips didn’t stand a chance. Of course on the third and fourth day, the chair stayed in place while I got up and moved the chair where it needed to be before I sat down. I scrounged up a pillow for my chair at the sewing machine. And . . . of course both aspects were already too late. I might add that there was another gal about my age, Betty, at the retreat. When the gal behind me at the breakfast offered to pour the juice as I could’t lift anything that heavy, Betty asked me several questions. All that I could offer was that this body of mine seemed to be an incubator for arthritis that brought a few shortcomings. Bless her heart that she had never experienced any arthritic health issues.
This morning I was at the chiropractor by ten. I had had an appointment already set up before I left home last week. Yes, there were knots to work on in the ole neck and shoulders, but he knew it would be temporary. Scott asked me if I had had a good time, and of course, I said to the positive. I am the one who added the response that I didn’t know if I could do this type of retreat when the unknowns could hurt so much. I had to try. There is no place like home when we all have things set up that best serve us.
Tomorrow morning I have a physical therapy appointment for my hips. It will all work out just fine. It never hurts to take one’s self on a test run of an new adventure to see how the finish line ends up. I think I now know more than I did a week ago. It’s good to be home.