Dear all,
Sorry I've been out of communication for a while. The truth of the matter is that I write about my life on this blog all the time, and then find myself bored by my own stories and not as enthusiastic about emailing you all about what's been happening. I then had a flash of inspiration, and thought I would combine the two, such that I get to write on my blog, and you get to find out what's happening in my life without having to go back and read 6 months' worth of posts. Of course, if you want to read 6 months' worth of posts, I will not object, but since I am not the only person in the world who is busy, I will assume you are too and do not have time to browse for 2 weeks straight, neglecting your jobs, your lives, and your personal hygiene.
Today is Independence Day, by the way, so Happy Independence Day to all y'all.
This is also a good time to do a recap since in one week I turn 41. And by 41, of course, I mean 29. You know, self-reflection and all that.
Yesterday I was at the beach and reading BKS Iyengar's Light on Yoga. In the introduction he talks about the basic principles of yoga. He writes of the distractions and obstacles to the aspirant's practice of yoga. One that he mentions is Vyadhi. This is a sanskrit word, and it means, essentially, ill health. This is what Iyengar says about it:
It will be noticed that the very first obstacle is ill-health or sickness. To the yogi his body is the prime instrument of attainment. If his vehicle breaks down, the traveler cannot go far. If the body is broken by ill-health, the aspirant can achieve little. Physical health is important for mental development, as normally the mind functions through the nervous system. When the body is sick or the nervous system is affected, the mind becomes restless or dull and inert and concentration or meditation becomes impossible.
I more or less begin with this because the last couple of years have been largely consumed by pain. Physical pain. The short version is that I had a femoroacetabular impingement and a labral tear in my left hip. I was in major pain from April of 2007 and was diagnosed in October of 2007. In January of 2008 I had arthroscopic surgery to correct the injury (no, I did not get a hip replacement), which took a good 5 months to heal. Well, that was the first stage of healing, the immediate post-surgery pain and stiffness part of healing.
I tried to go back to running, but my hip would have none of it. In fact, running made my sacroiliac joint hurt. So, around August of 2008, the SI joint pain began, and got progressively worse over the following few months, even though I switched to low impact exercise and yoga.
About 2 days before leaving for Europe last fall, I woke up one morning and my SI joint had gone on strike. I could barely move, and of course then had to travel across the world for 10 days with 2 suitcases. Needless to say, things were pretty bad.
Since then I have done several things: I tried a chiropractor (who I wasn't impressed with, so I only went twice), I took a number of Alexander Technique lessons (I highly recommend it for back problems, though orthopedists will tell you it's all bunk - it's not), I downed a lot of ibuprofen, got a cortisone shot in my hip (again) for bursitis, which helped the irritation in the SI joint, and started making green smoothies and eating more raw/live food. The upshot of all this has been better posture therefore less strain on my hip and lower back, stronger core muscles (including stronger lower back muscles), better gait (so that I hinge at my hip joints instead of my waist - I know, right?), and a decrease of inflammation over time.
Each of these things made some difference. The Alexander Technique helped with redistributing weight and posture, which relieved a lot of pressure and strain from my hip and lower back. The bursitis, however, was really irritating everything else, my hip joint, my back, my knee. The cortisone shot relieved that. The other thing that helped and still helps is raw food. I am definitely not going to be completely raw any time soon, if ever, but I have to admit that raw food really does help my body feel cleaner. The green smoothies are a great way to decrease inflammation on days my back hurts more. And yoga has been helping with flexibility in my upper back rather than the delicate lower back, and strength. And by the way, ibuprofen eats away at your immune system, so I only take it for headaches now.
All this is taking up 3 paragraphs of this post, but it's taken up 2+ years of my life. I recently spoke to a friend who hurt his hip and said it took him 3 years to get back to normal. 4 months after surgery my ass. Why is it that doctors never just tell you the truth? It's not like I wouldn't have had the surgery. What he really meant was, I'll keep an eye out for 4 months after surgery, and if you're doing well, you're on your own after that. I expected to have my life back after 4 months, maybe even 6, and did not anticipate at all the amount of time it would take and the domino effect of the one injury.
One thing you might ask yourself is why such obsession with healing? Why not just accept that I have chronic pain? After all, people go their whole lives with debilitating pain, and many athletes suffer the consequences of their athleticism after 40 or so. To that I say, HELL NO. I will not live the rest of my life in pain. Too many years of that, I figure. And neither will I live taking all the medications that most people take. I don't think I should be on medication before 85. After that, maybe.
Plus, like Iyengar points out, it's pretty hard to aspire to much when you're sick or in pain.
By the way, I'm not done. I'm trying 2 other chiropractors, who come highly recommended by people I trust. One of them was the chiro that helped my friend with the hip injury. He now plays baseball again. When he was injured, he was told he was done with baseball, and that wasn't good enough for him.
The point being, in case you haven't figured it out, that the focus of my last 2+ years has been my health because having pain and accepting it is not good enough for me. Plus, I hated surgery SO MUCH that I will not have any more surgery ever again. This excludes major life-threatening conditions, of course. Nor does it mean that I will let illnesses and injuries get progressively worse until they're life threatening or crippling. What it means is that I have to be healthy and strong so that I don't need to be medicated and operated on.
The next thing to take on is to get rid of my sinus headaches/migraines. But that is not as urgent to me as my hip and back, so I'll tackle that probably in about 6 months.
What else is going on? Work is going well, thankfully. In these times of 9.5% unemployment (reportedly, 11% in Cali), I'm not just grateful to have a job, I'm grateful to have a great job with great people. So far so good, but we're not out of the woods yet. I think another couple of years at least before the cities fully recover. Maybe longer. But I'm at work all day, and it's not really interesting to anyone other than us, so I won't talk about it here, other than to say that this December we are again going on a 3 day cruise to Mexico as our office Xmas party. This will be our second one, and we're all brimming with anticipation, which goes to show you how much we like each other.
I'm still taking courses at Landmark Education, though I spend much less time there. I have gotten a tremendous amount of benefit from Landmark, and will probably always be taking seminars there. But finally I feel like I don't need to be in a program at all times to be at peace. I highly recommend the Landmark Forum to everyone - it really does increase the quality of life like nothing else. It's not the only thing that does this, but it's faster and cheaper than most other paths, so why not?
This year I have traveled some, and will do a little more. In March I spent 2 weeks in Hawaii, I've been to Boulder, CO, to visit some friends in Berkeley, CA, and will go to New Orleans, LA in August, and San Jose, CA in Sept (for a work thing). I want to return to Hawaii next year, but with Willow and Adam maybe or someone else. Next summer I want to go rafting down the Colorado River. My back likes exercise and hiking, so I want to do more of that, too.
My relationship prospects are almost zero. I have been out of the dating scene for a while, mostly because I just had it up to here with all the fucking crazy people out there. Not that I'm not crazy, but at least I know it. It gets tougher and tougher, with all my friends getting married and having children. Me, I just get older. And yet, I'm not interested in being with someone just for the sake of having a family, so if it happens, great, if it doesn't, too bad. I'm not sure I have enough time left in my life to do all the things I want to do even if I am single for the rest of my life, so bored I will not be.
However, I will get back into the fray, but the blog posts about my dating adventures (or lack thereof) will be published on this blog 3 months after they occur. Maybe even later, depending on what's going on. The reason for this is that while I feel that writing about my experiences is fun and cathartic, I want to write about them from a perspective that is not "ooh this will make an excellent post," but rather because writing completes the experience for me.
Speaking of writing, I intend to take a writing class next quarter, probably starting late August, early September. UCLA Extensions has a comprehensive writing program, and I want to take a writing workshop on personal essay writing. Basically, a little coaching for what I already do, write about my life. I greatly look forward to that. I anticipate writer's block, of course, but that'll be part of the fun. Besides, I don't suffer nearly enough to call myself a writer.
Anyway, that's about it, in a rather giant nutshell. If you want to see pictures of my adventures, take a gander at my Flickr stream. Things are nicely organized in sets, with titles that tell you what the set is of, and you can choose which pictures to see. I recommend the Hana Highway set from Maui, the slideshow setting. I'm also on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/elena.gerli, and on Twitter (@thegerlilife).
