It’s this time of year when I notice my vision starts fading with the light.
As the days get shorter and the nights are longer, navigating my world becomes harder, almost like my surroundings become a little less predictable.
On days when there is less light due to clouds, by the time I get to rehab, my body is already exhausted. I feel heavy and my limbs feel like they’re made of lead. Simply walking uphill feels enormous. Add on my thick jacket, extra clothes and gloves to stay warm and it reminds me of altitude training I did before my stroke.
But then I caught myself thinking about it differently.
I could focus on the heaviness, on what feels hard, on what feels like it’s slowing me down. Or I could think about what those things are actually doing for me. The jacket that feels restrictive is also keeping me warm. The padded gloves that feel bulky are protecting my hands from the cold. The layers I feel like I’m lugging around are also helping me keep going.
Sometimes we get so focused on the weight we’re carrying that we forget some of those things are there to protect us.
So this week’s monotonous rehab session became a reminder: not everything heavy is there to hold us back. Some things are there to carry us through