Joraaver Chahal

Recovery

At first, the title of this post was “Surgery Part 3: Recovery.” After all, that’s an exact description of what I’ve been doing, and it follows the previous posts’ titles. It took me eight weeks to attempt weight-bearing. Four more to go from crutch walking to cane walking to standard walking. I can finally squat down on the toilet. At the start of the day, I walk upstairs like a normal human being. At the end, only healthy leg traversal. Downstairs is still just a healthy leg game. This coming Sunday, I play nine holes of golf at Mariner’s Point in Foster City, but I’ll be all torso and shoulders. My favorite way to express power: no legs.

But as I mulled over how to say what I wanted to say, I realized the title would be misleading. Nonetheless, “recovery” still rang true. I’m now going to wax philosophical, so forgive me. If you have the stomach to endure it, by all means, read in gulps.

My recovery started well before my surgery, around late October to mid November.

You see, I met this girl. Corny, I know, but hear me out.

Identity is a curious thing. I’ve spoken about it before.

They say the hardships you face reveal who you really are, but that’s just half the story. The beauty you project into the world is also a reflection of who you are. What you make of the extremes of life, the boons and the banes, reflect who you are.

Something is still amiss with this statement.

They don’t reflect who you are. They reflect what you’ve become. Either by fate, family, friends, or force of will, the behaviors we display are a projection of who we’ve become. The fallacy is thinking that who we’ve become is who we are.

I’m convinced that if you are of the introspective kind, you spend the rest of your life answering the question “who are you?” That means a life spent analyzing your behaviors, questioning if that’s what you wanted to do, or if that’s the expression of a younger you doing whatever worked to keep you safe. It means reflecting on if your goals and aspirations are just mirrors of those who had pinned their expectations on you. Had they even pinned them on you to begin with, or did your ego decide that was what you had to do? It means coming to grips with the fact that while you may consider events in your past mistakes, or the person you’ve become, some kind of mistake, you could, in fact, be no other person but you at this juncture. To have done differently, decided differently, would be disrespectful to the person you were, no matter who that was. In a certain sense, it is arrogant. What else can it be, the belief that somehow you, whose thoughts, immature, and whose experience, limited, would choose differently, would act differently? Perhaps I use the term too broadly, but even the soft-spoken, the humble, the ones you’d never label arrogant, can be arrogant in their humility, in their restraint if viewed from the perspective of what is good and right.

The only responsibility you have is to discover who you are, and if that is who you want to be.

The hardest part is the perseverance to change. Not the willingness to change. Willingness is too soft. Many are willing. But to try again, and face all your negative behaviors when it doesn’t work, then breathe and try again, and respect the non-linearity of growth when stuck, and try again, and learn to be strict with yourself, forgive yourself, focus yourself, and enjoy yourself, and try again, is the only path.

What I’ve just described applies to most skill mastery. So what makes identity so different?

There isn’t an end goal in sight. There isn’t a guarantee you’ll even visit the corners of mind that make those obsolete behaviors possible. You don’t know what you are trying to become. Even that’s a mistake, because the person you are trying to become now may not be the person you want to be in another ten years. Often, you are just trying to not be whatever you currently are. Is it a fight with yourself? Is it a race?

What if you never become anything? Or is the mistake in thinking you have to become something at all?

Enter girl.

You ever push someone away, and that person just won’t stop? She doesn’t get the message. She doesn’t understand that you are going through some things, some tough things, and you just need to be alone to do it. Then you find yourself questioning if you really had to do it alone? Or why you label it as “tough?” Was that your make-believe version of what it had to be like? When did that become your belief? Maybe you were celebrated for your independence. Friends would come by and make the world colorful for a bit. Then friends would leave, and you’d be in the grey again. Wait, wait. Would they leave? Or did you force them to leave? Because you had to pull yourself out of the grey, right? That’s what you do, that’s what you’ve done before, that’s what you’ll do again. That’s who you are.

That’s who I am, right?

Until she decided to force her way into my life. Oppressively so, in my mind. She doesn’t think that, but it’s okay. She’ll get there. You see, the whole bit about the perseverance to change, while in part true, is a lot of smoke. The biggest prerequisite to change who you are is a safe environment to do it in.

She provided that, and she was relentless.

I missed the point when I read Bell Hook’s All About Love: New Visions. I told my friend that recommended the book that I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration of the ideal of love, but like all ideals, it fell short of reality. The pink mass inside my skull thought the only thing that mattered is how you handled the lows in life. Somehow, the highs handled themselves.

The beauty you project into the world is also a reflection of who you are.

If you project no beauty, what does that say about you? If you are proud of your ability to navigate hardship, did it come at the cost of never celebrating blessings? Do you turn to this person when you want to let the boons that have come your way in life blossom? How do you label the person who can handle the crisis like a passing breeze and spread warmth like the sun itself? What does that person see in herself? What effect does that person have on others?

She sat with me in the grey. She encouraged me to see the world differently. She challenged whatever language I used in my own personal narrative. She made everything easier.

The curious thing is, she could only express her true self because I made her feel safe to do so. For me, enabling that was automatic. Because I am a stubborn fool, understanding that that was what I needed, or even allowing myself to believe that one could realize that within the context of a relationship, was difficult.

But I’ve misconstrued her actions because, the good writer that I am, I’ve tried to maintain an active voice. Allow me to rephrase.

I continuously felt her presence in the grey. The world looked different when she expressed her opinions. My personal narrative and the language I used to construct it were constantly challenged by her existence.

She just did, and that has allowed me to just be.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson

I first heard this quotation from the movie Coach Carter. It took only a moment to feel it deep in my bones, but it took fifteen years of living for that moment to come to life. Now, life feels a lot simpler, and I’m thankful to her for that.

Summer is just around the corner. I promise not to be this philosophical and just enjoy summer. But you try spending six weeks in bed without developing a third stomach for rumination while outside the birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming.

Fun fact, before this post, I’ve always used ruminate as another word for ponder or mull, but in psychology rumination is the specific act of engaging in repetitive negative thinking.

I’m just trying to be a cow and enjoy the green grass.