I just got back from a two-week stay in the Shushwap with my future in-laws. Lake life is pretty great; I adapted quite nicely to the retirement lifestyle, too. If I started golfing four times a week and had a winter home in California, people would ask me when I was turning 65. I pretty much lived the dream out there. Most of my day was spent on a patio chair on the deck, overlooking the blue waters of the Shushwap and surrounding green hills. I read. A lot. I read real literature, too, a nice change from the smutty stuff of my morphine days. Every day I'd go for a therapeutic walk or swim in the lake using my old-lady aquasize belt. Following cocktail hour and dinner I'd craft and watch TV before sleeping for nine to ten hours. See? Dream lifestyle.
Rod and Allyson, my prospective in-laws, were extremely kind and solicitous. The first few days I was there it was: No, Sara, let me get that. No, Sara, I'll get you a drink. No, Sara, leave those dirty dishes there, I'll put them away. Eventually I was permitted to assist with after-dinner clean-up, but only if I didn't over-extend myself. By contrast, Dan is much more eager to let me help with dishes, dinner and sweeping the floor because it's part of my "occupational rehabilitation."
I can't describe how nice it was to get out of Calgary for an extended period of time. When you're sick, and especially when your mobility isn't too great, it's very easy to feel trapped: trapped in your room, stuck in your house, prevented from going anywhere you fear is inaccessible. The world shrinks and condenses and you feel imprisoned by your own body. Trading my little bubble of house, physio and parent's house for lake, walking and swimming was so liberating! And normal! Now when people ask me what I did this summer my answer doesn't have to be restricted to: well, a surgeon stuck his hand down my pelvis, broke some bones and pinned them together, and I had to do a lot of ass exercises. Now I can say that I built up my "tan," I caught my first fish, I read this year's Booker Prize winner and I beat Dan in scrabble (several times).
Another nice thing about my break was talking to new people. Since I'm off work I don't really talk to anyone unless I make a point of getting out of the house. Sometimes it will be two in the afternoon and I'll realize I haven't used my vocal chords. If Dan is golfing, I may not socialize until ten at night. Socializing is one of those skills you have to keep using lest you suddenly transform into a pedantic weirdo. Fortunately I start school in a couple of weeks - so there's hope I'll preserve my remaining small talk skills and remember what it feels like to be a normal, non-gimpy, adult.
