I have always been active. As a child, I wasn’t as active as others, but I still had some youthful energy to burn off everyday. As I grew, and developed my own definition of self, outdoor activities had a space in my life. I really loved playing softball. Even as I grew older and began losing a step or two every few years, no activity brought me more joy that feeling a bat in my hands or the tight nestling of my left hand in a glove and a ball in my right. I always felt at home on a baseball field.

Perhaps the clearest goal I set for myself while I was recovering after the accident was to run again. At my age, I knew I would never be fast again. Those days were in the rear view mirror long before the gate came crashing down on me. But to be quick enough to chase down a fly ball or hit the ball well enough to make it to first base was something my minds eye could still see.

It has been over a year and two months since the accident. I have been able to put weight on both legs for over a year. I have been walking completely unaided for nearly a year. Each milestone was quietly celebrated because each step was just step in the process. The true celebration was going to be swinging a bat and running to first and chasing down my first fly ball.

That day has not come. And I need to begin the emotional healing that will allow me to feel okay about that potentially never happening. It is a unique grieving process. It’s not just about playing softball. It’s about moving my body at will, in the way I have always been able to move my body. It about letting go of my past physical self so I can fully embrace my current physical self.

I am able to do many things. I have successfully returned to work, performing all of the very physical tasks, maybe not with the ease I did before, but certainly with the competence. I went on a hike on a trail that is generally seen as moderately difficult. Finding all the things I can do in the way I want to are the baby steps toward being a new version of myself.

My therapist calls it a loss of dreams. Grief over a loss of how I saw my future, my retirement, unfold. I always saw myself doing things in my retirement that I did in my youth, only much slower and more care, but with more time to do them. But its not just a loss of abilities. It’s a loss of what has been a cornerstone to the balance I struck in life. Outdoor physical activity isn’t just a tool. It’s one of my pillars of living a satisfied, healthy life.

One thing I must do is reestablish a healthier relationship to pain. I suffered with migraines for most of my life, so I learned how to function with intense pain. Early on in recovery from the accident, I was strongly advised to not push through that pain. That on the other side of that pain is a more intense, debilitating pain. Now its time to learn where my pain thresh hold now stands and what to expect when I walk through that door. Limping is far better than sitting. Movement must still be one of my definers.

It is not possible to remain unchanged after such a tremendous life event. But it is possible, and perhaps imperative, to redefine the terms of that change. I must let go of who I thought I was going to be. Retake the power that those few seconds hold. And keep moving.