"I just want things to go back to normal."

Just a quick background for this post if you haven't been keeping up.  Towards the end of July I injured my left hip, but I didn't really know what was wrong, and it wasn't too bad at first, so I continued to use it normally for the next 3 and a half weeks.  It got steadily worse until I could no longer put weight on my left leg.  I was diagnosed with a stress fracture just below the joint in my left hip.  I cannot put weight on my left leg at all while it heals, so I have been on crutches or in a wheelchair for the past six weeks.  I still have at least six weeks to go until I am crutch free, as my doctor told me I need to stay off the leg for six weeks AFTER I no longer feel any pain in that hip, and currently I do still have some pain.

Last evening while Daddy was heating up our dinner, this precious girl of mine, Anne (age 5) had a meltdown and climbed up onto my lap sobbing and saying that she "just wants things to go back to normal."  I was pretty sure that I knew what she meant, but I questioned her further just to be sure.  Through her tears she told me that she wanted things to go back to to normal when Mommy did all of the work and she had more time to play.  She didn't want to have to help me carry things all the time and always be the one to let the dog out.  Now granted this was a very tired little girl at the end of her second full week of Kindergarten, but she was breaking my heart!

Now I feel my child's pain.  I have really been struggling the last few weeks, trying so hard to be patient, trying so hard not to let my depression creep in and take over, and wishing so hard that I could just get up and do all the things I am supposed to be able to do.  I want to sleep upstairs in my own bed!  I want to walk my children in and out of school every day instead of having someone else do it for me.  I want to clean my own house.  I want to take a real shower.  I want to take my dog for long walks in the woods on these beautiful fall days.  I want to make dinner for my family.  I want to be able to pick my kids up off the floor when they fall, and walk my rascally son back into time out over and over and over again.  It has been six weeks, well longer than that if you count the three weeks of pain before that.  I am really trying to learn this lesson in patience that God is trying to teach me.  God is always trying to teach me patience.  I must be pretty bad at it!  He is also trying to teach me to let go of control, to let other people help, to let HIM take over.  I must be pretty bad at that too!  BUT, I am trying.

I really have struggled with the extra pressure that this has put on my children, especially Anne.  She is more sensitive and because she is older, more has been expected of her.  And while she says that she doesn't want to do everything to help, she worries about who is helping Mommy when she is not there.  And she wants normal again.  I don't think that she understands that our normal has changed.  The old normal wasn't so great.  There were wonderful things about it, and many things that I took for granted, but I can sit here now and say that there were many things in my life that were normal for me, but that need to change.  It takes time for "normal" to change.  I need to change for a healthier me.  I need more time with God, I need more exercise, I need to eat better, I need more quality time with my husband, my friends and my kids.  However, I spend most of my life sitting in safe and comfortable ruts, doing things the easy way.

I feel like this experience is giving me the opportunity to change my old normal for a better normal, and honestly, I am so afraid I am going to screw it up.  I am afraid I am going to forget when I am free to move again.  I am trying to use this time to better my mind and prepare myself to have a whole new normal.  I feel like that is the reason that all this is happening, because I needed a drastic intervention to change and wiggle out of my comfortable old normal.

So my poor precious girl, this has put too much stress on a five year old.  She worries that I am going to get hurt worse if I fall, and about who is going to take care of me when she is not around, and then she is five, and just wants to play sometimes, so when we ask her to help she feels like she has to do everything.  So we had a long cuddle and a long talk, about being patient, and about what it means to do things out of love, even when you don't feel like it.   Even though it feels like it is taking forever for this hip to heal, it will.  In the meantime, I have been listening to Andy Stanley's series, "In the Meantime (Meantimeseries.org).  It is all about what to do when you can't do anything.  It is very inspiring.  So I am trying to be inspired and to plan out my new normal, while I patiently wait to heal.