Day In A Word

My journal asked me to describe my day in a word. Think about how I feel about the day ahead and choose a singular word that embodies it best. What word would I want to return to, focus on, glue to the walls to remind myself to stay on my intended path?

The first word that came to mind was “metered”.

Maybe because it was a bleary 5:30am when I was writing in that journal, but the world really applies to all of my days.

I wish I could say any of these words: adventurous, bold, novel, spontaneous, high-activity, high-energy, free form.

But with this protracted recovery process I’m not there. My days are keenly metered. In a really awesome, and finely tuned way, but also as a hefty endurance event.

Let me explain.

I have so many endeavors each day that I want to pour myself into, to the max, but I have to be sure that I’m putting the recovery process and the physical and mental energy required for that FIRST. That means tempering what I do with everything else. And making sure there is the perfect balance of up and down energy.

It is constantly changing, growing outward in fits and spurts as time passes and healing progresses, but the shifting boundaries have to be discovered through failure in order for me to know where they are.

A single day of overdoing it even the slightest bit leaves me wiped and flat for 2-3 days. 

A single day of being slightly off balance ruins my sleep even more than it already is; I wake up more times due to pain from overdoing it.

There are tons of things each day that remain on my to-do list in favor of keeping my calculated balance intact. If I stray from it, I pay. For several days. While working through recovery, the body isn’t as forgiving when I decide to push too far as it would be normally.

Yesterday I pushed my limits and I feel it today. I wouldn’t undo it – we had an evening pigs in a blanket and milkshake party for 7, does it get any better than that? – but it is amazing how that extra bit pushed me over my limit. I had not tested my boundaries in a while and certainly not with such an energetic social gathering (boisterous teenage boys). Today is blurry metered, focused only on the slowly ticking second hand, like my watch above.

No matter! After 11 surgeries and working through this “metered” period, I’ve got this down! Today will be chill, a day of TLC and replenishing, and I’ll be good to go tomorrow or the next day, aware of my new boundary.

I feel like this metered connection, living on a limited data plan while I reroute my resources to healing.

Today will be metered as will be the next several days. Then I’ll push again to discover new boundaries, on and on, until one day when I can turn off my Metered Connection toggle for good, changing my word from “metered” to “mine”.

What is your day in a word? Share it in the Comments Box below!

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