Spurts

No, not that kind! Get your mind outta there! This is a G-rated blog.

I'm talking about life these days consisting of spurts of energy, spurts of activity, spurts of feeling like I can contribute some small measure of something to at least my little corner of the universe.

They seem to always, however, be followed by  about 4-8 times the amount of time used up in the spurt needing to be spent in recovery. If it's not dealing with pain, it's just large bouts of inertia. Nothing appeals for an activity, nothing is necessary (barring bathroom breaks), nothing worthy of the energy needed to accomplish it. However minor. Nothing.

Tuesday I did my taxes. No biggie, right? I needed three pieces of information, the printed forms to fill in and mail, and instructions. Some things were changed from past years when I had to fill in a complete Schedule C, an SE, and my deductions and exemptions weren't influenced by my age. Yes, all that didn't really constitute a challenge after all those years of doing my own business taxes. But still....

There was a year of paperwork to go through, just because. Maybe I don't really need every little gas or fast food receipt, few as they are these days, or every RX expense documented since I'm not itemizing, but there still is (my) need to file all the stuff together into a folder for the year, "just in case." Tax audit paranoia, maybe, despite never having been audited and always having documentation. My need to garner 2,000+ pieces of paper means going through each file folder, sorting, spreading everything across the bed in piles, tossing a 5" deep stack of recyclable papers in the bin, making sure all bank and credit card statements are included for the year.... You know, all the stuff I didn't really need to do.

The point is that it all took most of a day, involving lots of movement in the legs as I found  different places for everything, requiring me to turn different ways across the bed. Lots of movement. I also filled out the forms sitting in the recliner, but my knees were now protesting their position and I kept crossing, moving, recrossing, stretching.... Well, again a bit of overactivity. And three days were necessary to recover from it.

This meant I was finally up to thinking about doing something again today.

Perfect timing as it turned out, as today was the day to visit the surgeon and lobby him for replacing knee #2. I was at my most pain free, best able to demonstrate my recovery at my 6-week point, and... successful. Surgery is next month, just under 4 weeks away. And I can now make plans to return to Minnesota's cooler and mosquito-filled summer just after The Fourth.

We'll see how well I can manage those spurts by then. Perhaps I can spend the next few weeks learning better how to pace myself, finding out if that can really make a difference. After all, I'm looking at a three day driving marathon.

Or maybe I'll have to fly back instead.