Falling apart

I wanted to try and write something new every week but kind of got blocked by my stupid brain, anxiety over what is (let's face it) something I write basically for myself. Even this simple work has several days of run-up and way more deletion and on-the-spot editing than it really should.

I'm pushing myself through, though, because it's important that I not stop and let those sorts of things overwhelm me - even when I have nothing important to say. Of all the things to finally get me into this, it's my knees.

So, background. I train in Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) and have for several years. I'm not great or anything, I just enjoy the challenge and it gets me out of the house and exercising. However, in the past year I have injured both knees (not at the same time). Ligament damage. There's basically nothing you can do to speed up the healing process except to be careful, rest, and build up the surrounding muscles to support the knee better. When it happened the first time, I took six weeks off from training. Going back in to the club was very difficult after that, and I had to force myself to go every time for more than a month. My second injury came at the beginning of December 2016, and I immediately felt my mood and attitude sink. I just knew that I would have to go through the rebuilding process all over again and wasn't sure I was up to it. Hell, I thought about quitting several times over the next few days.

After 10 days or so I finally pulled myself out of it. There was no way I was giving up. So I grabbed my gear and went in for a morning class. I was very thankful I was the only person there that day, since it meant I could talk to my instructor and let him know what was happening. He was super supportive and modified his training plan to account for my leg. Since then, it's been slowly getting better, and I've just had to learn to be very careful how I kick when I need to support myself on that knee.

(That took longer than I thought it would ...) Anyways, the point is that I forced myself to get back up from the injury and keep going. Slowly at first, sure, but at least moving forwards. The writing is like that, and probably will be for a while as I figure out what my tone, my 'voice', is going to be.