Toe to Toe, I Feel Your Pain

No one can prepare you for loss. No one can tell you how you will handle it, how you will feel about it. Loss, big or small, is a process, one in which you have to get through in your own time, in your own way.

For me, I had no idea what was coming. Zero indication that I was about to be thrown feet first into it. In fact, the only glimmer of what was to come was a sensation, call it a "blister" about to rub. I was 100% focused on my first full Marathon and I blazed past all the warning signs.

The high of completing my first Marathon was crushed by the news of my loss. I was not flooded with pain the way I thought I would be. Instead it was like a steady pressure. An all consuming mental absorption. I couldn't think about anything else and I couldn't make the ever increasing pressure lift. Numb, I simply let the process unfold. It was as if it had to happen to me yet I was not a part of it. This was NOT what I expected at all. I expected to be writhing on the floor, screaming in pain. I pictured lots of tears.

I sat sipping wine, wine the color of my bruising. Wine that helped me feel numb. Wine that helped with the healing. I sipped my wine and stared at the inevitable before me, legs outstretched, swollen feet propped up. My future laid open and exposed to everyone.  I thought to myself, "How did this happen to me? Would I ever be the same?" I leaned on Jess who consoled me. He promised that I would get through it, but that it would take a long time.

As days turned into weeks. There was no bloody carnage, but rather a clear stream of relief, an utter sense of acceptance. But as with all loss, it comes in stages.

As the almost beautiful bruising was swept away in pieces off the floor. A new evolution of loss came to me. It was summer where barren soles play freely, but mine, I felt I had to hide. No one wants to see the deformity I had become. As time went on, I would actually forget about it only then to suddenly become aware of it again and wonder if anyone else had noticed. In a self conscious panic I would try to hide the glaringly obvious loss.

Now with more time having passed and as they say "time heals all wounds", I have been feeling on the mend! Only yesterday I was sucker punched with a new wave of this process. A pain I hadn't felt before, the first real pain I have been in touch with. A pain that dug in sharply. A new sense of life pushing its way into the old. This is not when I thought I would feel pain, yet that is exactly what I have.

"WHY?!" I screamed. Can't this just be over? I am tired of it being a thought, tired of it being a part of my daily existence. I want to wear sandals!!!

They say it is only a matter of time before you experience the loss all distance runners experience, the loss of a toe nail. But I didn't think it would happen to me. Now all I can do is go through the process. The long, tortuous process.

I hope someday to feel whole again. Someday to join the free soles of Summer. Someday, to wear sandals again.

At least my toe no longer matches the color of my wine.

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com