Recovery
The word prompt for today’s January Blogger Challenge (which I totally have not been keeping up on at all!) is Recovery. The word should be a positive one, but I seem to have the hardest time hearing the word and not thinking about the train wreck preceding it or feeling my stomach muscles tighten at the thought of the long process of getting back to the way life was before whatever disaster took place.
Our economy has apparently been in recovery for two years now, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not when you compare it to the “good old days” of 2005 when all you had to do was purchase a home or buy some stock and watch your personal income grow. Recovery is painful and tediously slow.
If you’re a recovering addict (alcohol, drugs, food, etc.) part of recovery requires you to do some soul searching self examination to discover why you went off track in the first place. It’s never fun to have to admit you played a part in your own demise. While ultimately good for you, it is a humbling experience.
Time seems to last forever when you are recovering from an injury. You can’t lift what you used to or even what you want to. Your body is reminding you that you cannot will the clock to move any faster. If you’re recovering from the devastation of a hurricane or earthquake it must be incredibly hard to not get lost in the unfairness of it all.
But then I met a woman at the gym the other day and she gave me new perspective on the word. Her twelve year old son was recently in the hospital for brain cancer. “How is he now?” I asked, before thinking it might be a bad question to ask.
She smiled. “Full recovery.”
Recovery. It is hard. It is painful. It is tediously long and humbling. But it is also the sweetest word a mother can hear.
Lisa
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