End Of An Era

Today is the four-month anniversary of my accident .... and my last day of "freedom" since I return to work full-time tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous -- it feels like the first day of school!

I'd be lying if I said that I hated having all of this time off for my job, because I didn't. I liked having the time to do relaxing things like read or watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and I enjoyed having the time to write my own stuff. It was also a relief to not have to worry about deadlines and all of the other stressful things that come with my job.

But by having that "freedom," my real freedom was sacrificed in that my broken leg forbid me from moving around easily and doing a lot of things on my own. Then there were all of the painful doctor visits, my surgery and oh, yeah, having to have my bone popped into place. Yeeooouuuch! I definitely WON'T miss any of that.

Still, as much as it sucked to break my leg, this time off wasn't entirely horrible. In fact, there were a lot of good things that happened during these four months:

1. We hosted two awesome parties: our 10th anniversary bash in April and a house party in June.

2. We found some cool, new restaurants in our neighborhood (which Jon wheeled me to, always greatly appreciated. He really went above and beyond for me while I was hurt).

3. I got to spend a lot of quality time with my parents. Sure, the circumstances under which I was seeing them weren't so great, but I still enjoyed having the chance to catch up and feel like we're closer than we've been in a long time.

4. I got A LOT of freelance writing done, which is very cool.

5. I've become close with my friend/neighbor, Karen, who really took good care of me during this time off. We were friendly before, but now we're good friends. Many of my other friends, too, such as Amy, Scott, Lani, Suzanne and Marianna, were really here for me during this time.

6. I've lost some weight and am starting to get back into shape again. Before I broke my leg, I was kind of in a rut, but wanting to walk again has pushed me in the right direction.

See, so breaking your leg doesn't have to be the end of the world, and for me, it actually felt like the beginning of many new things. I'm anxious about tomorrow, but am determined to not let my job drag me into a slump once again. Instead, I'm planning to focus on everything else in my life and find my self worth through those goals. I think that if I do that, I can continue taking care of myself and becoming a better person.

For today, though, I'm planning to relax, take a long shower, relax ... and then go to bed early. Tomorrow is going to be a crazy day and I want to be ready to jump right in!