Day: Oh, stopped counting. STILL getting there.

The husband is in Aspen, monoskiing up a storm and attending the X Games as a Super VIP. I love the programs that take care of our warriors with sports and recreation. I went out today and picked up a t-shirt for him that has a photograph of Muhammad Ali on it, standing over a defeated Sonny Liston. I am going to give it to him when he returns and tell him to only wear on his hardest days. Things haven't been going as they should be around here and I want him to feel empowered to catch up, go past, and defeat. He has less than a year to get right.

I've been feeling pretty defeated myself, lately. I'm in more pain on a daily basis than I ever have been before in my life. I am fairly certain that my caregiver duties are akin to getting in a minor car wreck on a daily basis. Apparently, it's nothing that $3700 and 13 weeks of intensive chiropractic care can't fix, though. Isn't that wonderful? I am also going to get a new primary care doctor and a referral for physical therapy for appropriate exercise and home equipment, but I am 100% positive that chiropractic is what I need. And before I leave the hospital environment, I will find a way for caregivers to obtain affordable chiropractic care while they are here. It's a shame it isn't a possibility already.

I thought it would be easier a year and a half in. What do I know? I am 30 and still getting my shit together. I don't even feel 30. I don't even know what it means to feel my age. Emotionally, maybe. But I balance a scarred soul with an outright refusal to be "old" pretty well. My upfront personality is a fun-loving, probably immature young woman. But I've lived a few lives and been a statistical improbability enough times to carry a bit of a chip on my tiny shoulder called "experience in life sucking." And most people talk to me as if I am much younger, so I've always had to back track and prove my knowledge in some way later on. I was chatting with a friend last night and told him that I feel small people have two choices in life: live up their size or past it. I never wanted to be confused for some sweet doormat, so I went past it. I feel like a giant sometimes. And other days, I feel like a giant failure. 

The more I know the more I realize I actually don't know anything at all. I'm an infant. I just roll through life, learning as I go. The question of, "What do you want in life?" has always been answered with, "As long as I'm good to go when it's time to go, I will know I will have succeeded." So of course a philosophy like that doesn't call for planning a fantastic career or having a family with children or really, any idea at all of how to fill in the time between now and then. I aim to be happy with the current moment. Which is wonderful, really. But I promise you it encourages not planning and that isn't really going to contribute to success. I need to get better at that.

Which is why I'm going to sign off right now and finish one of two very late papers for my last class. Life really blew for a few weeks (hello, 2013, you old friend) and I could not handle much outside of small household chores and counting down the hours until my next dose of pain medicine. I don't want to live like that, so here's to getting better. I'm planning on it.