I Have No Choice, I Must Keep Moving

We don't have a choice. When we fall, we have to get up again. We have to keep going. We can't just lie there.

I fell yesterday. Don’t worry. I am okay. It’s not fun to fall; it hurts! But it comes with the territory of living with a disability such as mine. I can’t just lie there and have a pity party. No, I have to get up. I have no choice. Yes, I stay still for a moment and assess the damage. I let go of negative emotions surrounding that fall and then look around for a way to get back up again. 99.9% of the time, I fall on my knees, so crawling to a couch to pull me up won’t work. I scoot on my butt to the couch and do reverse arm push-ups or whatever you want to call them. It’s not pretty, but eventually, I do get up. Once I get up on the couch, I do another check, take a deep breath and MOVE. Why?

I know if I just sit there, I’ll get stiffer. The muscles will weaken, I’ll become fearful. Yes, I’m gentle with myself! I’ll take an Advil if I need to. I won’t push myself beyond my pain tolerance. I will sit down between tasks; maybe I’ll sit down during a task. That’s okay. I’ll get there eventually.

There are some things I can’t do easily today, like bending down to pick up something I dropped. I have weak hands, and I drop a lot of things. But I learn and adapt. I find creative ways around that weakness.

I’m working out the kinks in my lower back by going about my daily routines, albeit a bit slower.

Tomorrow a friend is coming over to clean my apartment as she does every couple of weeks. I do pay her for her help. I warned her that I’d need her help to do something I usually do on my own because I know I won’t have healed enough. Sometimes, we need help as we heal.

I am not writing this because I want to talk about my disability. I am writing this to encourage SOMEONE who needs to hear this. We all fall. We have a choice. We can stay down, or we can crawl or scoot to where we can get ourselves upright. We need to assess the damage, and yes, we need to take a breather and take care of ourselves. But sooner than later, we have to keep moving forward. If not, our spiritual, mental, and emotional muscles will atrophy.

We were created to move. Ask anyone who has ever gone through rehab after surgery or an accident. It’s not easy those first few steps or those first hundred steps. But Physical and Occupational therapists know that if their patients don’t MOVE, their systems will break down.

Reach out for help if you need it, but you cannot afford to wallow in your pain or stay down for long. You have to get up.
Perhaps you fell today. Maybe not physically, but you still fell. Perhaps you broke a promise, you overate, you yelled at someone in traffic, you didn’t follow through, you ignored that nudge to help the person you knew you should have helped. You didn’t pay your bills in time. Perhaps you let yourself down. Perhaps you feel like you let God down.

Now is the time to pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Access the damage. Do what you need to take care of yourself. Clean up any messes that were created by your fall, so someone else doesn’t trip up. But keep moving.

Proverbs 24:16 NLT The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.

Read about a time my friend and I nearly killed my mom with kindness here.

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Every Second Monday  – our next meetings will be held on August 2, August 16, and August 30. In September. the day might switch depending on the school schedule for me. Stay tuned.

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©2021 Katherine Walden