It's happening

Secrets are not fun. Secrets are hard to keep and even harder to keep if there are a bunch of them all intertwined together in a mess of secrecy and lies. So now, finally, our secret(s) are out and I can finally stop walking on eggshells and worrying if I let something slip.

Here goes...

I'm quitting my job and we are moving to Arizona.

Phew. I feel better already.

I put in my 2 weeks at work last Thursday. It was by far the worst part of this whole journey. I had rehearsed it in my head a million times, but once those words came out of my mouth, I lost it. How professional of me. Luckily my boss was super supportive and even hugged me (weird). But it still stings. I love this job. I'm perfect for this job. I'm lucky I found this job. It's hard to leave. And it's even harder to leave because of someone else's opportunities. Don't get me wrong, I would follow Mark to the end of the Earth, but moving to a place Mark used to live, that Mark loves, for Mark's job is really challenging for me. When I moved to Portland, it was for me. It was because I wanted an adventure and I had an internship waiting for me. Now, I am following someone else on their adventure and I'm struggling to find where mine is and how it fits in. I am proud of myself for finding this job and for working hard and suffering through shitty jobs and finally starting a career. Now I'm walking away from it. From my independence, really. I never wanted to be reliant on anyone else. But now I'm moving to a place I've only been as a tourist, where Mark has already established a life and I'm doing it with all the hope and ambition I can possibly muster up, but I'm truly doing it knowing I might not find anything as great as I have now.
But there's not much I can do besides mourn this loss, pick myself up and move on with my life. I am moving with my future husband and the man who I never want to live without. I certainly didn't have that when I moved to Portland. Arizona is just going to be a new chapter, the first chapter, really, in our new life together.
Plus, I get to go to Europe! My BFFFE Amanda is living in Poland and teaching English. So, I'm going to meet her, her mom and sister and we are traveling around Europe for almost 3 weeks! We'll head to Krakow, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague and Amsterdam! I'm very excited! I need to start packing!

Big Day!

Today was a big day. Today I went to the gym.  It was glorious. I may be in awful shape, but I enjoyed every painful, sweaty, breathless moment. Victory!!

6 months!!

Yesterday was exactly 6 months since I tore my ACL. I can’t believe it’s been that long. Sometimes it seems like just a few days ago and sometimes it feels like forever ago. Either way you look at it, I am definitely getting stronger, droopy leg is un-drooping and my scars are as impressive as ever. Here’s the deets:


PT: still twice a week, but then I’m down to once a week after next week. I don’t know what I’ll do with all my free time! PT at home is the correct answer.

Bend: I’m up to about 115degrees. This has been very challenging. When I hit 90, I was able to start weight-bearing so we didn’t focus on my bend very much after that. I am still making improvements every time, but not as much as before. BUT, having John force my leg to bend beyond its capabilities for an hour and until I was in tears was not that fun. So glad to be beyond that!

Straighten: I’m still having to work at this every day. It’s straight, but doesn’t want to hyperextend like my left leg. I have a feeling I’ll be working on these for a while.

Exercises: This is fun again! We are doing “monsters”(squatting and taking diagonal, forward steps with the band around my ankles). Side steps with the band. One legged squats while throwing the ball against the trampoline. Bosu squats with weights. Hamstring curls on the ball. Leg press. And my least favorite- steps (literally stepping onto and over a step). This week was the first time I was on the elliptical! And also on the stair stepper- backwards. Its pretty pathetic how out of shape I am. But it’s progress!

Pain: I’m definitely sore after a hard day of PT. And of course when I push my knee to bend or straighten more than it wants to.

So what’s next? I got good news this week from my vascular surgeon: my blood clot is officially harmless. It’s basically glued itself in there, has smoothed over and shouldn’t cause me any more problems! So, I officially gave up my stupid compression socks- just in time for the nice weather, too!

I still have another month or so of physical therapy. I have another month until I can start straight-line running. I expect I’ll make it about 500 feet before collapsing, but it’s a great goal to work towards. I can ride my bike now, though I’ll need to switch out my clip-ins for a cage pedal before that happens. I think I might actually go un-freeze my gym membership!