Letting Go

Today was my last day at work before embarking on a two month medical leave to have my left hip re-replaced due to a device “re-call”. I left work feeling almost completely satisfied that I could face the impending circumstances with almost no work-related stress or unfinished business. In fact the only thing that was left on my plate was creating a Christmas card list of the past year’s donors and supporters of the small non-profit that I work for. I quickly recited a list of worthy recipients to any co-workers who may have been listening as I breezed out of my office into the snowy afternoon. They may or may not get out; I just have to let it go. I’m finding that I am letting go of a lot of things these days. I will no longer be able to run after my bionic-titanium parts are replaced with those more fragile. Ceramic, plastic and metal will probably not invoke words from my surgeon like, “Do whatever you want as long as it does not cause you pain.” Not that pain has ever stopped me before. No pain, no gain, right? I will miss running though, and I’ll have to face any other limitations head on as they come. Since I am returning home from the hospital mere days before Christmas, I am letting that go too. My family, my husband Dan and our two children, have been trying to create a family holiday experience as far from the consumer, commercial version as we can, spending our time making gifts, cooking food, playing games and music- and if we are not on a traveling adventure- staying home and just having fun. Two years ago our kids, they are twenty six and twenty one now, squirreled away and wrapped random objects from our home so when we woke on Christmas morning, Dan and I really thought Santa had come. The gifts were spilling out from under the tree, until I looked closer at the bicycle with the big red ribbon tied around it, noticing the rust and dirty tires-who's bike was that? In the days leading up to this week I have amassed a stack of books to read while recovering. I have selected various tomes for friends and family as gifts this season and that is all I am doing. Cooking, traveling, creating, taking care of family and friends, I’m letting it go. The first time I had total hip replacement surgery was four years and four months ago and three days after finding out my husband was having an affair. It’s amazing how the trauma of that disclosure and the corresponding emotions completely trumped the trauma of surgery. Dan and I are amazed that we have almost no recollection of what happened the first time I had surgery. We are trying to put the pieces together in order to prepare ourselves this time around, but we have hardly any memory of the experience. It really puts in to perspective the depth of pain one suffers from an affair in a relationship. It’s hard for me not to remember those times now as I get ready to go through this once again, but this time I have the full support and care of a loving man-my husband of almost twenty seven years. And it’s funny because this second surgery, this “do-over” is like another chance to make all my stories right, to let go of those stories and parts that “no longer serve me” as one of my wise friends noted. And so here it is, another chance to let go, another chance to continue creating my story.