Finding a pulse on the present

How my current adventure with a broken foot is forcing me into stillness, learning how to ask for help, and being present

I am writing this piece from the same general location I have been planted for three weeks - my couch. As a mom, this is an extremely weird experience for me as I usually only get to sit on the couch after my kids go to bed, spending most of my day jumping up to do the next thing for my kids or the household. But three weeks ago, something happened that put a screeching halt to the usual running around and forced me into stillness - I broke my foot.

I would love to say I broke my foot some extremely cool way. Perhaps saving a child from a runaway train or pet-sitting Carson Steele’s alligator on a day it was particularly irritable. The reality is I was in my running around mode, trying to get two kids out the door to my sister-in-law’s baby shower. I was standing, trying to wiggle my right foot into a boot while giving commands to my kids. I lost my balance, stepped my left foot back to regain it, only to become entangled in my left boot waiting its turn. I started to fall and planted my left foot down to catch myself. I landed poorly on the outer left part of my foot and heard a loud POP before hitting the ground.

I sat there in shock for a minute, muttering to myself “Please don’t be broken, please don’t be broken.” After an x-ray at a vet’s clinic (long story), trying to force myself to walk on it for 24 hours thinking it was a bad sprain, being wheeled into urgent care by a nurse who took pity on the girl crying and crawling to the door, and another round of x-rays, I found out I broke my fifth metatarsal with a Jones fracture.

It feels like since that x-ray, all I have done is learn things. I learned that when fractures have their own special name, it means they are particularly difficult to heal. I learned my fracture specifically means I have little-to-no blood flow going to the area and that surgery was highly recommended to insert a screw to hold the break in place. I learned that part of why this fracture happened is my feet have very high arches and I have never had arch-supportive shoes, meaning I trained my feet to turn towards the outside edges when walking my whole life. I learned that I needed to get rid of my current shoes, invest in nicer arch-support options, and start walking with an insert in my shoe at all times to train my feet to walk correctly.

But most importantly, I learned that I now had to slow down. Stillness does not come very easily to me, especially since having kids. Most recently I have been very on-the-go with a new job in the fall, going to church regularly for the first time in a decade, dealing with family issues, the holidays, and my youngest’s birthday.

With all of this activity, I have felt myself gradually becoming less present. I have been resting in a foggy arena in my mind, torn in too many directions of my own choosing, not having the energy to find a way out of the fog to be clear and present with my family. I’ve been trying baby steps to get out of the fog and into the clarity of the sun, starting with limiting my time doom-scrolling on my phone and getting on the floor more to play with my kids. Any spare energy outside of that has been towards my novel WIP. Both of these baby steps were part of my plan to observe more and be more in touch creatively to continue this newsletter.

I think perhaps I wasn’t as committed as the universe thought I should be to my goals of slowing down and getting a pulse back on the present. Hence my broken foot. I will say if that was the universe’s plan, it backfired slightly.

My baby steps towards being present are now being thoroughly challenged. I can’t get on the floor to play with my kids. Their games they have to be modified to my propped up location on various pieces of furniture. I am resorting more to doom scrolling since I can’t do anything for the household and my kids get impatient with my lack of mobility. I am trying to find new ways to engage with my kids and be okay with staring off into space, alone with my thoughts.

This broken foot journey is not only challenging my previous goals, but also my independence. Normally I try not to ask for help or favors. When I do, I tend to feel very guilty about it. Now I have strict instructions to put no weight on my broken foot for what will be 7 weeks total, resorting to crutches to move around. Crutches mean I have no use of my hands and I need to ask people to bring me my dinner plate or refill my water cup. I have had to ask for help in retrieving things on tall shelves or in the backs of cabinets. My kids have had to learn extreme independence in a short amount of time, especially the three-year-old, as they help make their food or get dressed or wash their own hair.

The stillness I have been forced to embrace goes against health goals I have been working towards. I was working out 5x a week with weights. I was practicing for our backpacking trip in August, carrying 40 pounds on my back up and down our five acres of terrain to get my cardio in better shape. I was trying to get back into yoga with a goal of doing it every day for at least 15 minutes. A broken foot puts an immediate stop to all of that in the most frustrating way. I can feel myself falling behind on my goals as my muscles turn to jelly. I spend my newfound time with my thoughts worrying about my ability to trek 30 miles in August with weight on a trail I know is difficult. The good that comes out of this roadblock is my motivation and willpower I am already building in myself to work hard to get back into shape before August.

If you are enjoying this piece, feel free to donate $5 for a cup of coffee to fuel my writing (but I can't promise it won't go towards children art supplies)

These are the things that are difficult. Destruction of my previous goals. Challenges to my character. Worry that I am going to fail. Guilt over my family having to accommodate their own lives and goals to help me. To counter these yucky feelings that try to take over, I have to stop and think about the good things that have come of this slowdown.

• The timing was actually pretty decent. My three-year-old just finished potty-training in January. The weather isn’t subzero where I need to worry about hauling wood and manning our wood stoves. Literally the day before the break, I made the kids help me complete a maniacal deep cleaning for spring.

• I am glad I had workout goals I started in the fall to prepare for this backpacking trip. I did many exercises focusing on single-leg drive strength that have been excessively beneficial on crutches as my right leg is bearing a lot of weight and mobility for my entire body.

• I am very appreciative of my marriage vows that said “in sickness and in health” since my husband is bound by vow to take care of me 😂 In all seriousness, his ability to effortlessly carry the weight of the household and kids on his back while also delivering me food and beverages and laptop chargers and snacks has been outstanding. Plus he had to literally carry my weight post-surgery in and out of his truck and to the house.

Through many challenges and pain, the opportunity comes to appreciate the simple things the most. Like the week before my surgery when my husband had to go to work for two days and I was alone parenting the kids with the anxiety of broken foot limitations. Blessedly the weather was beautiful both days. I had the kids pack a “fun picnic lunch” for outside, then encouraged them to play as long as possible in the sun.

I sat outside with my foot propped and elevated, a backpack of activities to distract myself with as I tried to soak in vitamin D to heal my break. I had a book open on my lap, but didn’t feel the drive to escape into the story. Instead I sat and listened to the frogs croaking in our pond, my official sign that spring is here. I watched the girls dig holes in the snow-enriched mud, giggling as they transported mud pies to our struggling garden that may never wake up from winter. I monitored our dogs who spent the time outside alternating between sunbathing and protecting us from the neighbor dogs that don’t understand human land ownership laws.

I was forced to slow down, but sitting outside for those few hours gave me the first moment of peace after big emotional days where my kids learned new routines of independence and help. Reflecting back, it felt like the first moment of peace I had in months. The reset gave me an idea for a scene in my WIP that arrived in the middle of the night when my foot pain was not allowing for sleep. It motivated me with this article idea, one of the few I have had the past 6 months since losing the pulse on the present.

While I don’t recommend going through something as extreme as breaking a foot and undergoing surgery to slow down, I do think there are many benefits to pausing. To sitting in the sun with no distractions. To letting your kids learn independence in the confines of a world they can create. To taking a moment to be grateful for the small things, like the ability to carry a cup or dinner plate and choosing to workout and just, like, the general wonder of feet.

So for my first post in 6 months, I challenge you to pause and rediscover your pulse on the present. Don’t let a broken foot make you.