I rest on my bed for the millionth hour in these last two weeks, pressing a blue gel ice pack on my throbbing quadriceps. Yesterday I must have pushed myself a tad too aggressively through my post-total hip replacement exercises: ankle pumps, side kicks. gentle squats. I feel a wee bit sorry for myself: “I must have done something wrong. The whole world goes out to work, shop, visit friends and I lie here unable to drive, rehabbing.”

The mind rambles on: “I’m not fit enough to get well. I’m messing up this post-operative recovery time. I feel 10 years older than I am.”

I have fully missed the total miracle of being able to give up a walker and fully move on my own a mere few days after major hip surgery.

In the midst of my self-criticism for choosing – even needing – the surgery, I hear the echo of my husband’s voice in my head. He used to tease our son Zac nearly 30 years ago, Zac in the middle of a temper tantrum, yelling, “I won’t … you can’t … I will never….”

Jon would say, “Are we taking a dip in the lake of bad attitude?”

Today I am, in fact, swimming in a lake of rotten attitude, muddy at the bottom, whipped to frothing on the surface. The word “lake” jumps my mind to Henry David Thoreau’s words: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”

I decide to try it. Using the arm push-up I have so dutifully practiced, I inch my way off the bed and grab my Nordic trail poles. The poles make me smile. I had used them for years and then loaned them to my dad as he weakened at the end of his life. He liked them because they felt “more sporty” than a cane. I wrap my palms around the black rubber grips, straps over wrists, and feel his hands over (or maybe under) mine as we – he is with me, I know – step out of the garage onto the asphalt road. Ever so slowly, I place my right foot down in proper alignment, bend my right knee exactly over the center of my arch, and use my leg muscles in this brand new way of limp-free walking.

The mind spews out more junk: “My gait isn’t right. I’m ruining the surgeon’s work. I’m too slow. I’m too fast.”

I slog about 10 feet, then spot Bev, neighbor and friend, stomping in leaves near the mailbox with Lily, her 14-month- old great-granddaughter. Bev asks Lily, “Do you want to stay at the mailboxes or go home?”

Lily, dressed in pinks and purples, giggles, squiggles sideways, never really answers. Bev and I chat: “Oh, to be young again. Isn’t it startling that we have to nap when grandchildren do? Don’t you so love having the grandkids here?”

We look into Lily’s happy eyes and share grandmother spirit. We hug good-bye, and I feel less like a sick person and more connected to a bigger world.

I trudge on and meet Denny, also out for a short walk; Denny, with his “bad back,” me with my former bum hip, both in the middle of the roundabout. He says, “At our age, it’s good to take a few 10-minute walks a day. Don’t you get stiff if you sit too long?”

“Ya,” we both laugh.

Denny heads home, and says, “Don’t go too far.”

We both know what he means. “Don’t go too far” means the vigor you think you have plays tricks on you. You get so far away from home and suddenly you can’t lift a foot, your eyes start to close and you wonder, as Denny said, “How am I going to get home?”

We wave each other on and I feel less alone; we have touched the common humanity of aging bodies and inevitable aches and pains. I feel OK about frailty in this moment. There is nothing wrong with me all of a sudden.

I clip along now, right arm swinging, left leg stepping out. Contralateral movement. Good. Better than yesterday. Ben drives by and stops. “Wow, since last week, you’ve made so much progress.”

I ask, “Really?’

He says, “Sure. You were shuffling your toes a few days ago. Now you’re so strong.”

One quick jaunt. Four dear people, plus my dad. By the time I hang up my poles, I can towel off now after nearly drowning in Bad Attitude Lake. I can take myself less seriously, and not take life so personally. Sometimes, to come out of our mental funks, we need others to reflect the truth to us. And perhaps that truth depends on a walk around the neighborhood.

 

Susan Lebel Young is a retired psychotherapist, teaches mindfulness, yoga and meditation and is the author of “Lessons from a Golfer: A Daughter’s Story of Opening the Heart.” She can be reached at sly313@aol.com.

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