I woke up yesterday morning at like 2 o’clock and my legs were hurting so badly! I refused to get out of bed and sit in my chair (makes me feel better sometimes) because I still had some time left to sleep until I had to get up to for work. I was miserable from 2 o’clock on. I told Phil about it when I got to Barwis. I told him that throughout the workday my legs started feeling better.
I didn’t have students yesterday so I just was getting work done that I needed to get done so it was quiet. He stretched my legs out and they started to feel even better. My colleague at work asked me if the pain was a “good” pain or a “bad’ pain that I woke up with. I had to think about it. I wasn’t sure. My legs have never awakened me because of being in pain like that but maybe it was a good thing because I was feeling something. Phil told me maybe it was because it was SO cold! I am SO sick of this weather!
Then he stopped stretching me for a bit and my legs remained slightly spread apart and my feet were pointed straight ahead. I felt blood flowing through my legs and feet and I told Phil that my legs feel “normal.”
That “normal” feeling remained with me the entire time we were working. I was able to get into my car by myself. Phil grabbed my fist after we fist bumped and yelled “joystick” but I was okay with that. The “normal” feeling in my legs continued. My Mom called and she asked me and Sean to meet her and my uncle at a restaurant. On my way home, I was hoping to get the tears out of me that I felt were SO close. They didn’t come. I pull up into my driveway and beep for Sean to come out. The “normal” feeling remained with me throughout dinner. I was in the restroom after dinner that the tears finally started to come. I was overwhelmed that this “normal” feeling still continued. I wiped my face and got Sean and got in the car to drive home. And the “normal” feeling was STILL with me. My legs felt good!
Sean reclined his seat and said he was going to sleep for a while as we drove home. So then the tears came. I would like to say that they were “strong, silent tears.” But they weren’t. I could feel the sobs originating in my belly and rattling my chest. I stifled them because my son was sleeping next to me. I have been working SO hard at Barwis that of course this day would eventually come. But I guess I was not ready for it. I debated if I was going to go to bed or not because I knew I would wake up not feeling this way and I wanted to keep the “normal” feeling as long as I could. I remember my Dad telling a story about guys in the Army being on leave and having to go back to Vietnam. They would get really, really, really drunk and some would pass out before leaving and would have to be loaded onto the plane to go back. When they woke up the next day, they were back in Vietnam. They would cry.
I don’t want to be like them. I decided to go to bed with the knowledge that I would wake up feeling badly again. I woke up at 3:35 a.m. and my knees hurt a little bit. I rolled onto my stomach to make them stop hurting. I had that “normal” feeling in my legs for 10 hours. Wow! Even now, as I sit at my table and write this, the “normal” feeling has begun to return to my legs and my feet are straight forward. I thought I would be ready for this. I thought I prepared myself for this. Apparently not. I suppose I will be a “sissy, cry-face baby” like I was last night. But I’m okay with that.