Wobbly Knee

This evening Paul and I took the dogs to a large fenced field.  They can run and play in this field.  And run and play they did.  At one point Chewie looked at Gromit and dashed  away tail high in the air - Gromit watched Chewie and took off at a full out and out gallop for that tail - as he caught Chewie he leaned his open mouth over Chewie’s shoulder and threw his hips into Chewie’s back end.   Chewie arced his head around and snapped his teeth and smiled at Gromit - he danced in a circle and they went loping off and came back again.  They bumped once more.  I watched as Chewie lost his balance and got up and went for Gromit.   But then he let out a muddled yelp and whimpered and came limping behind me.  He layed down. 

Flashes of panic floated through me on the inside as I started working my hands down his body to see where he had discomfort.  He stood up lame on his rear right leg - he has a bad knee and a bad hip on that side and has had surgery to boot on that leg.   I kept quietly praying please don’t need surgery.  Not because of the cost, it is the pain and confusion for Chewie that happens with surgery.  He is my kid dog, my little guy.  He has been down this path once already.  The months of recovery and the way dogs never complain so you never know how far to push in rehab.  I hate the look of a dog after surgery when the anesthesia is kind of worn off but not exactly and they just are dazed.  

Every single day I weigh the joy and pain in his life.  I kiss him on the top of his head, and hug his lumpy soft body, scratch the sides of his snout and rub under his ears.  I wouldn’t call it worry exactly but I do consider his life and watch for the smile in his eyes and the spry bark for dinner.   I look at his body and am surprised at its continued lean and muscled build.  It will never be the big muscles of his running days but he is trim again like those days.  This return to a lean body is to relieve his joints as much as possible.   I watch closely how he goes up and down the stairs, in and out of the car, lifts his leg to pee, and how his gait changes from walk to run.  He has been doing so well and his falling down and losing his backend has lessened.  Maybe the yelp was just a yelp like when I do something wrong in kettle bells.  Maybe it was something, maybe it was just a pulled muscle, maybe it was a hitch in the joint, maybe it was nothing huge...I watch like a hawk.

This summer has been really hard and now it is fall and my birthday happened.  I tried to use my birthday to mark my moving on from whatever weirdness just happened over the summer.  For my birthday some dear  friends came and painted my garage and helped fix the roof on the garage.  They let go of their lives to spend time tending to my worries and remove some of the overwhelming feelings that weighed on my sagging shoulders.   They came to my house with vegetables from their gardens, and they painted an removed rotted boards and old shingles and replaced them all,  and we ate dinner on the screen porch with a MN sunset and glorious evening weather like my life might be a celebration - they filled my house with family noise and bustle and laughter and accomplished minor miracles in a weekend.  

These women are the friends that have made so many things possible and are the backbone of my self-reliance.   I have real conversations with these women and talk about my most deep seeded fears in trying to live a life that is true and compassionate.   These are some of my friends who are heroes and friends all at once.  They see me as capable, strong and complete yet not flawless.  We are human.    They see me as a peer and I feel like I belong and am right in the world when I am with them.  I trust them to let me know myself, all of myself - the good the bad and the ugly - without walking away from me.   They tell me when I might be a bit off or have misread a situation. 

These are some of the best friends who I have shared suffering and celebration.   I have done things with them people only dream of doing - pushing snow in Antarctica, kayaking Lake Superior, canoeing to silence in the Boundary Waters, marching on Washington DC, biking in New Zealand., seeing the northern lights, breaking trail in the woods -  Together we taught and learned some of the most practical skills of life - how to chalk a line, square a wall, and build a house, filter water, light a whisper stove in driving wind, roll out of a kayak and get back in, read a compass, plant wood, knit clothes, stoke a wood stove, split wood, mark way points on a gps, bake bread, change a bike tire, and live with compassion and strength.  

And so now, when I look back to before the summer and try to figure out what the hell happened, what did I do wrong,  how did I live thinking I was in a happy and joyful relationship, how was my reality so far off?  How do you go from seeing someone as your life soul mate, the one who asked your to marry her, the person you most look forward to seeing each day - how did I end up meaning so little to that person that she writes me off in the matter of two weeks?  How does that happen?  More important than trying to figure that all out for me is how do I move on?   

When I watch Chewie it reminds me of myself in this space.  Like I want to play and have fun but I kind of keep falling, my emotional legs collapsing under me.  My joints just can’t hold me up.  I wish I could figure out how to relieve my emotional joints.  I feel like they are swollen and sore with sadness, frustration and anger.  My emotions feel elastic, unreliable and they melt into each other.  I feel like I can’t stand on my own wobbly knees and they give out letting me fall into places and people that I am not ready to fall into.   I can’t seem to find the corners and edges to tuck away what needs tucking to walk in the world.  I want to walk in the world in a certain way.  I want to have feelings and compassion but I don’t want them to spill out into places that they don’t belong.  I want to be in the place of looking and observing myself and being able to make a choice about my actions and reactions.   I want to choose who and how I share my feelings, to feel confident and knowing but not controlling.  I want to let the people I interact with have the space to say whether or not the depth of my feelings is right between us.  Usually I can intuit this and keep the right space, the right depth.  Oh, but these days, things just eek out and every eek has the potential to open a flood gate.   How do I move on?  

There are no words for how beaten down I feel.  These friends are the backbone of my self reliance.  I have to strengthen my emotional joints and learn how to walk straight up again.  I don’t know when or if I will ever trust again - but then I think of my friends and I think of course I trust them and they will help me navigate these waters.   I don’t want to miss any more of the next adventures we have coming together.  That is as far as I can go right now.   These are the friends that I can spill over with emotionally and rebuild my edges find my tucking points and walk again in the world.   I don't want to be too much though, and they say I am not - but like that rehab thing - how do I know when I am pushing too much? And then I remember I am the one in rehab and I trust them - they will tell me. 

My good friend Molly was explaining how in watching me go through this process it is like getting into a boat.  When you are trying to get back into a kayak from open water you have to use your weight to help you get in.  You have to get your weight to the center of that boat, and then low in the boat.  That is how you can stop the rocking and wobbling.  She said in watching me -  “The elegance in that navigation is in the pack of your shoulders, the stretch of your spine and putting your weight solidly into the boat."  Oh, how I hope to have this elegance, this integrity.   And that is my work, to continue to put my weight solidly in this moment, this time, this lesson.  I have had my friends around me this summer.  All my close friends have checked in and stayed close. 

I want to hurry this process of grief so I can get back to our lives and the next awesome thing we do together.  And then I think wait this is the awesome thing we are doing right now - I am navigating these waters and as I put my weight into the boat solidly - I am so lucky to have friends to bear my travels, a compass to keep me pointed in the direction of true north or true Heidi.  I don’t want to be here.  I never wanted to be here.

Then again, I don’t think Chewie wants to have a wobbly knee or sore hip.  The best I can do is keep watch and be ready to swoop in if he goes down.  Offer to be with him and around him no matter what - pain or no pain I am right there, playing and smiling or tired and sleeping, stiff or agile - I will be right there.  The best I can do is keeping watching his happy dance and finding ways to give him room to dance without risking that wobbly knee.  I can’t control him though and he might go too far - I will be right here next to him to make sure to support him if something does happen.  

I have fallen off course, my course feels like a mystery and somedays I sit still and don’t move.  My friends, my family though, they are right here with me.  I can see them and hear them and feel them all.  I am not alone no matter how lonely it feels sometimes.