Slow and Steady

I used to love sitting with my great-grandmother as she read to me.  If I was very good and she had a few free minutes in her busy day she'd reach up high in her linen closet and get out an old school book that belonged to her son.  It was obviously a very treasured volume.  It was a rare day that I was allowed to touch it.  The book had several of Aesop's fables in it.  I loved those stories.  I could imagine the dog with a big bone in it's mouth, a raucous crow carrying on a conversation or a clever snake fooling a frog into becoming an easy snack.  

One of my favorite stories was the Tortoise and the Hare.  It didn't make sense to me. Let's face it, the Hare had every advantage.  He was a sleek running machine.  He was born for speed and agility.  The Tortoise, well, there wasn't much sleek about him.  He had that chunky, heavy shell. When tortoises are at a dead run, they're slow.  Was the Hare really so ignorant and lazy that he didn't just run the race and THEN go eat lunch, take a nap and do whatever else he wanted to do with the rest of the day?  But no, every time my great-grandmother read the story, the silly hare played the same silly, cocksure game and lost the race.  

What did the Tortoise have that the Hare didn't?  He had determination and tenacity. His goal wasn't necessarily to win the race as much as it was to finish the race.  That was something the Hare never really understood. He KNEW he could win the race but he didn't decide it was important enough to put in the effort to finish.

I'm learning a lot more about that Tortoise's way of thinking lately.  I can't go at the frenetic, Hare's pace I'm accustomed to going.  I'm learning that while the human body is healing, it uses up a tremendous amount of energy.  It's forcing me to think more like the Tortoise.  There are still lot's of things that need to be done.  I'm having to learn to prioritize to conserve my energy for the most important of the important things.  There are things that are important to me that I'm having to neglect or delay.  There are meetings I should probably attend and chores I should certainly do.  They will have to wait. Sometimes I can ask for help.  Sometimes I just have to decide that the world won't come to a stop just because I can't get something done.

I'm going for determination and tenacity.  I'm going to keep working, a little bit at a time, a little bit every day, to improve my flexibility.  I'm going to do my assigned exercises so I can regain confidence in my ability to walk and move without pain and safely. I'm doing what I have to do to become stronger. It may take me a while but I WILL finish this race.