The Sunday before Thanksgiving I woke up with a frightening pain in my right knee. Ugh. Thinking back over the previous week, I realized that I had really overdone it. Five exercise classes and two rounds of golf (walking one round) had apparently done me in. Hello, I am 63, not 23. I had felt a “twinge” in my knee during an intense Zumba class the day before. I thought—should I leave? But, no, unfortunately I did not listen to my body and decided to stay.
Soon I was suffering the consequences of an injury that felt like a torn knee part. I was forced to stay off my feet and take it easy. So all day Sunday and Monday I just sat at a card table doing jigsaw puzzles and watching mind-numbing amounts of HGTV. It was great. As long as I didn’t move, my knee didn’t hurt.
By Tuesday, I was able to hobble around the supermarket without too much pain. I still didn’t want to overdo though. So I decided to do my Christmas cards early and avoid the rush, so I parked myself at the dining room table. I had a good time reading through the letters I received from last Christmas, wrote a Christmas 2012 letter, and added little comments to friends and relatives as I went along. It was great.
On Wednesday, I caught up on some reading in the morning and then went to my afternoon of volunteering at the public library. We were busy, but checking in and checking out books is pretty sedentary. Thursday was Thanksgiving, but luckily my friends had earlier suggested eating out since it would just be the four of us. So after a relaxing morning, we went to the buffet in the afternoon. No cooking and no cleaning up were required. It was great.
The moral of this story is that it took a sore knee to tell me to slow down, take it easy, do less, and focus on the things I really enjoy. What was I thinking before this? It is not the person who exercises the most and runs around doing the most chores who wins in life. It is she who enjoys the ride. A little down time because of a sore knee can be a good thing.
2 comments:
In 2000, I was under the weather a bit, and tired a lot, and I took up embroidery. It was frustrating and slow to start, but it kept me occupied relatively effortlessly, and that's what I needed. As I got better at it, I just loved it - what a good outcome! Now I have to hope I'll send Christmas cards this year without the accompanying pain!
I absolutely need a new craft to keep my hands busy. I am thinking of becoming a hooker--of rugs that is. I like to paint, but it is such a mess that I keep it all to the cellar, and it's too cool and dark down there in the evening.
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