Spine Surgery Epilogue

For 12 months, writing a sympathy note was agonizing, but creating a blog post was impossible. I was brimming with ideas, scenes, events, and stories that jumped about in my head like corn in a popper—exploding out of control, yet imprisoned, padlocked. I couldn’t organize them into the written words. Nothing made its way to the tips of my fingers. Banging my head against a wall didn’t seem to help. In May, I took a deep breath, backed away, and decomposed my physical troubles to give me insight into my writing troubles. Here’s what I found.

The spine surgery triggered a year-long series of delays, missteps, and setbacks that punctured my mental, not just physical, well-being. Although I’ve had my share of rotator cuff and foot surgeries over the years, this was the first time a gnawing feeling gripped me—a sense that my body wouldn’t mend, and I’d never be who I was. Whether standing or sitting on the mat, I can’t bend to touch my toes or sit for over 20 minutes. When I try, I suffer. No matter how hard I push or punish my body, it will never have the same flexibility or strength.

If I don’t accept these limitations instead of fighting them, I’ll be miserable. Only by moving through and around them will I live without pain. It’s a puzzle to be solved. I’m fairly good at puzzles, so I feel better and chuckle at myself now, knowing there’s a different me to be discovered. Letting go of believing in overnight miracles and accepting the physical abilities will restore me. Of course, I’m not forgetting the continued physical therapy, training and application of the right exercises, along with a new attitude.

This same bull headed determination pushed and punished me to write my first novel. That attitude caused delays, missteps, and setbacks that put me in deep writing trouble. By June last year, I quit writing, archiving the draft chapters to my second book in a cloud somewhere, never to see the light of day again.

Fantasy was the root cause of my writing torment. Jack’s Gift was an accomplishment, but went unnoticed, like 99% of all writer’s first-books. My impatience and hubris resulted in stupid, self-defeating stuff. It was no one’s fault but my own.

Time to take stock. Becoming a novelist was a personal adventure, not the career goal of my youth. It was a bucket list item, quite frankly. Like learning to ride a bicycle or drive a car, it takes time, iterative practice and patience to develop writing skill. It takes courage to turn a car or bicycle into traffic. In my case, I turned into the book world self-publishing traffic without all the skills I needed.

So, here I am, one year later, writing again; starting with the recent SHIFT blog posts. When words don’t bubble up like rushing water over a rocky riverbed, I let myself be. They are coming to me now. Courage to write is returning. I feel good about it, approaching writing with humility and the discipline to ‘keep on trucking’.