06 Jan Hola 2021!
So I took a long social media hiatus during the last two weeks of the infamous, disastrous, harrowing, perplexing, the-year-that-must-not-be-named, 20th year of the 21st century. I wanted to spend time with my family, friends, my cat, and have some much needed ME time. It was energizing, liberating, empowering, and I felt like I truly lived in the moment and made these last few weeks truly special.
I can say, 2021 already started with a literal milestone on the first day of the year, when I incurred my very first injury that REQUIRED STITCHES. I had half a mind to say that I was BASE jumping off the Zaha Hadid building when this happened, but the truth was less exciting than that, I was playing beach volleyball with some friends.
Because of my very spirited nature, I never shy away from diving to get the ball. Unfortunately, my left knee made full contact with a wayward rock buried under the sand. The injury wasn’t as much painful as it was DISTURBING. I looked down and saw (prepare yourself for some graphic descriptions…) bleeding, yes, and also my skin and my fat pad hanging off my knee!
Lots of local anesthetic, antibiotics, debridement, and 6 stitches later, I became officially part of my Kickball team’s injured list, ending my season. It also dawned on me that paddleboarding, Lagree, long walks on the beach, and so much more will have to wait a bit. At least, until the stitches come off.
Normally, having an injury makes one feel a bit depressed. You’re in pain, you can’t properly shower, you sleep in weird positions, you have to take pills a few times a day, you feel yourself getting fat and bloated by the minute with the inactivity, and you can’t do the things you love and give you joy. It is no fun.
But peculiarly, I do not feel this way at all.
I feel like the universe gave me permission to slow down. To just BE STILL.
It allowed me to ask for help and allow people to help me.
It allowed me to look inward once more.
It made me realize how I am allowing my life to get busy again. And how I am using my packed social calendar as a way to mute what my soul wants me to hear and what my heart wants me to feel.
In just the few days since my injury, I started writing poetry again, watercolor painting, gardening, and playing my guitar. I even made some progress on a textbook chapter I have been trying to write for almost a year.
Earlier this evening, I went to the mailroom in my building (which also serves as our library/sitting room) and a book by Marianne Williamson caught my eye. In it I read:
“The mind is its own kind of dance floor. If in fact the highest, most creative work is the work of consciousness, then in slowing down, we’re not doing less; we’re doing more. Having slowed down physically, we’re in a better place to rev up psychically. We are becoming contemplative. We are shifting from the outer to the inner not in order to begin our demise, but to reseed and regreen the consciousness of the planet. And that is what is happening now: We’re going slower in order to go deeper, in order to go faster in a direction of urgently needed change in the world.”
I mean…if that wasn’t a billboard from the universe, I don’t know what is.
It’s ok to slow down, dear reader.
Close your eyes.
Feel the wind on your face.
Enjoy the beautiful world around you.
Explore the even more beautiful world inside you.
Lots of love,
Paula