Photo by red nails; wrong city;Â creative commons license.
A tiny metal spike in one’s foot is no fun at all, but I accept that the Universe is intent on bringing me something I really wanted by forcing me to stay home–much to my boss’ chagrin.
The way this works–or so I’ve found over the years–I know that on by Saturday, my foot will be soooooo much better. In fact, the pain and inflammation may even go away overnight. For weeks now, I’ve been hating that I would have to work this week, Shannon’s last week before leaving for college on Saturday, and that I would miss these last few days with her. My heart’s desire was to have more time with her this week, and I’ve been quietly attracting that without a huge fuss. Unfortunately, because I haven’t played Queen Bitch Mother and insisted she spend every spare minute with me, other time-snatchers have crept into the space I’ve lovingly given her. That’s often been a theme for me: where I give someone space, someone else quickly grabs onto them. But the Universe decided to help me out.
My new shoes unexpectedly irritated my right foot and when that didn’t totally sideline me, I stepped on something, most likely while running barefoot in the dark to turn off the back yard sprinklers. A rose thorn, I thought. Or maybe a briar from the big cleanup I’m doing. It got better and worse and better and worse, worse, worst! I finally gave in to the fact that I cannot put my foot behind my neck long enough to extract a thorn from my sole with tweezers and, since was at the point of no longer being able to drive to work or walk around the office, I went to the doctor who, after extracting the offending “foreign body,” kept telling me how impressed he was that I’d been walking around on a mini-knife all this time. I complained to Shannon at first, because I HATE being immobile and there’s so much I want/need to do! But the pain didn’t go away and kept me home for the next two days. It’s still too sore to walk on, but is improving. And I know that this was the Universe’s way of helping me–keeping me home from work so I can hang out while Shannon packs and have a few late-night talks with her.
This isn’t the first time I’ve attracted a minor injury or illness. When I do, it’s usually in some way that helps me, even if it doesn’t feel that way at the time, as I wrote about in the essay, The Miracle of Bad Things. Sometimes, it feels like a huge hindrance, a conspiracy to stop me from doing something I want to do or from being with someone I want to be with–and other times it forces me into someone’s path whom I would not otherwise meet. I’ve caught the stomach flu just long enough not to go on a business trip with the criminal I was secretly helping to investigate. I’ve had a sudden allergic reaction that kept me from a date with a man who beat up the woman he went out with instead. I’ve had a knee injury shove me in the direction of a friend who would introduce me to amazing new things. The list goes on.
But just as soon as the illness or injury has blocked the action that would harm me or keep me from my heart’s desires, the illness or injury goes away, usually within a very short period of time. In this case, because I couldn’t logically (ah, darned logic!) stay out of work for 3 days with so much going on, the Universe stepped in and helped me out so that I could have these last few days with Shannon before she fledges. The need for the block will be gone by tomorrow, and soon after, so too will the injury.
But just in case, I let my awestruck doctor keep the piece of metal. It doesn’t need to find its way back into my path!
Leave a Reply