Well, it wasn't exactly time out. It just felt that way. You see, I just got out of rehab. ...No! Not that kind! I was in a medical rehab getting back on my feet after shoulder surgery and other set backs. But perhaps both kinds are similar, especially when it comes to pain. As the common wish for many is to have the suffering magically go away rather than having to deal with stark reality. My total time out so far has been one month and three weeks of trying to maintain a zen-like stance in almost every situation. Sometimes that seemed impossible to do, but it was usually for the better. Admittedly however, I did have a couple moments when I was a bit less than my usual charming self.
Being at home in the city now is almost surreal. In rehab I was on a lockdown unit where I couldn't have visitors and then further I was in isolation part of that time. So just being reunited with my best friend "Mac" is awkward, especially sense I can only type with one hand. Despite everything, we are slowly getting back to where we were before. He saved a lot of interesting items from what I missed during my time out. I suspect some of those will always seem quite beyond the little world I had made for myself. ...In a way, I'm sorta glad about that.
Even with another surgery yet to go, I don't expect too much more time out. I hope this extended journey ends with a permanent return to the mystical solitude (i.e. isolation) of my little farmhouse on the prairie. At that point, I suspect what I'm grateful for in the whole experience will easily surpass the less than grateful. But given what so many have been going through and the horrendous number who have been ultimately lost, I felt like I was taking up space and resources.
Life so often is an odd juxtaposition of a flow between "normalcy" and extra-ordinary events whether small or large, lasting a short time or for a long while. Disruption happens, as well as ignored chronic conditions. Predictability and planning are too easily seen as the usual or the expected. So when something interferes, makes us change direction or completely blocks us, we are faced with new challenges and decisions. As someone has so aptly said, "The only thing you can depend on is change. And it's apt to occur when we are quite contented with our lives." It does seem that we either learn to deal with our own reality or risk ending up in a time out of our own making.
