After The flood!

This week I have been reminded almost daily about "milestones" and "watersheds" and the difference between them.
The milestones have been each  small step to recovery. The first few hours, the first reduction in painkillers, the getting rid of the oxygen mask,the first wash,  the first time being able to get out of bed on my own, the first bowel opening(Not to put too fine a point on it!) the first time I could walk unaided!
Lying around trying to recover from my surgery is giving me a a lot of  time to think! I don't usually like too much "thinking time, one of my survival techniques has always been to keep busy!and to avoid ruminating at all costs! 
But this is different somehow, I am dwelling on what I love about my life, how fortunate I am to be so well looked after, and how very much I am missing  my work!
I sometimes have to pinch myself when I realise how many people I have taught, (15,000!!!) and how precious they all have been, how many have become close friends, and how much I miss going out and meeting new ones.
So I think this spinal surgery experience has been a "watershed" a time of change, reviewing what is important and determining to give fresh impetus to those things, and disregard the trivia!

 When I was a little girl, I was in the dreadful 1953 flood on the East coast. It was a very tragic event, many people died, and we were all of us traumatised in one way or another. I was  six at the time, and we had six feet of sea water in our house, resulting in the pneumonia which almost killed me. 
That flood was a big turning point in our town, in fact ever since that time everything was defined as either being "before the flood" or "after the flood"!
Over the years there have been many more defining moments," before I was married", "after the kids", "after Nick died", after this before that , etc etc.
But the single most defining moment was when I stopped drinking and using mind altering chemicals! "Before and after" getting clean and sober was THE real "flood" measurement! There could be nothing to compare to the two eras.The thirty years before, have no bearing on the forty years after! The kind of watershed moment that I should and could never forget or underestimate.
 This recovery phase won't be long I know, and  this enforced restriction has not been as bad as I thought it would be, because I am able to think about the next phase of my life. It does feel though that  it might be another "flood" moment!
I will be seventy next week! "Before sobriety" , and abusing my body the way I did, I would never have believed that it was possible to live that long! "After" I cannot believe how quickly it has gone and how much I have been able to do! I also can't believe how much more I want to do and how having this operation will make it all more possible! 
I have been talking about having this surgery for so long that I perhaps have forgotten why I was having it! The idea that after it I would be so much better! more able to walk and in so much less pain, making everything I do more possible! So bring on the next few milestones, get to the other side of this particular real watershed!
What an exciting time ahead!