Longing for past and future freedoms

I've been spending much of my recuperation time on our living room couch, watching life spinning around me as I rest and read. At some point, having seen several things that caught my fancy, I brought my camera over, thinking it might not hurt to record what I see while I'm sick.

A couple of the shots are quite nice, actually. But after a night of little sleep (a mild allergy is triggering occasional coughing fits which are NOT FUN with a sore stapled stomach) I was awakened at around 6:15 with 15 minutes to get ready for a trip to the airport to see our younger daughter off to Vermont.

I would SO much rather have slept, but I'd promised, so I went -- and was much discouraged by how little energy I had: just walking through the terminal exhausted me. So now, when I look at the pictures I've taken from the couch, this is the one that sings to me: our dog, Nemo, looking out the front door, kept by his cone from licking his paws and kept by the door and his diabetes from his former gay leash-free gallops on the beach.

Maybe I just have to sit with this and continue to learn from it what it feels like to age, to lose energy and spirit, to be restrained or cut off from favorite activities. This is definitely one of those times when it's hard to be present, to live in the moment; I keep jumping forward to the time when I'll have energy again, when the pain and staples and stitches and bruises will be gone.

It's all good. But that never meant it would all be FUN!