This post was written 3 days after breaking my foot. The climate still rings true for me almost 3 weeks into recovery.

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I have a significant opportunity to evolve weighing on me right now. I’m in a boot. I broke my right foot two weeks ago while I was camping. I’ve slowed down. My husband and children have slowed down to walk beside me. Like my newly walking daughter, Nora, my steps are measured and deliberate. Unlike Nora, my butt and shoulders and hips want to go tense to stabilize if I am not mindful of them. For Nora, falling either brings giggles or tears. I steel myself to the pain if I lose mindfulness in my step and my foot hits wrong. Nora still has to learn to judge herself and others. I notice how slowly I am going relative to others. I wonder what they all think of me.

And, I walk as if I am smelling the roses – not like I have a destination. I creatively “kaboom” on my bum down the stairs with Nora or walk sideways down them. I marvel at the range I do have in my toes and ankle of my right foot. I marvel it is bearing weight when supported in my boot or for short timeframes pain free without the boot on in the evenings (sans kiddos around). I marvel I am still me and not frozen in the melodrama that in the past has brought me down in a time of personal crisis. My right hip bears much load now as does my knee. I am tired. Oh so tired. I want someone to care for me and I have to continue caring for all around me. This is frustrating, irritating, infuriating. And it is not all of me.

I think of aging – I saw an elderly woman walking at my pace – my mindful step pace – on our lunch stop on the drive home from camping. I think of people that I know in wheelchairs and with hearing impairments. They know slowing, seeing, feeling. They have direct access to wisdom that I have been missing. I don’t see them as missing something now – how fully they are formed. Yes, my right foot, ankle, shin and knee are busted up. And I haven’t had a tension headache. I can still drive. I am eating. I did my work for my business tonight. I am going to bed and getting up at the times that make me feel best. I am living. I am hurt and I am alive. I am whole.

I cannot compare myself to Mom B because Mom B might have 1 child, no busted foot and a husband who is away on business 3 of 4 weeks a month. I have 3 children, a busted foot and my husband is home every night. Person to person is apples to oranges. We are all as we are. Tingly and softened. Supple and stiff. Settled. Quiet. In the stillness, I know and see so much room to improve now… to nourish my foot, my knee and my hip to find a connection that supports me from top to bottom; to move my foot and toes daily in the pain free range that they offer me; to explore the potential that we have to be better than we ever were before. To evolve together. Here I go now, watch me soar in this boot.