What IS This?

How often do we turn down the path presented like a gift because it's not exactly what we're dreaming of?  Mark Nepo

What is this?  This is not what I bargained for in my life.  How interesting that the twists and turns in life bring us to where we are and I have noticed that for some of the turns, I have not been exactly grateful for.  

For example, several weeks ago, we decided to buy some fold up bikes to take on our travels.  Great, I thought.  Wait!  How long as it been since I have been on a bike?  Way to long to even want to remember.  So, I amped up my courage and confidence and decided that once knowing how to ride, it would now be easy, cheesy, peasy!  So wrong on all counts!

I pulled a groin muscle the first ride out and have been in agony most days since then!  Back on the pain relievers and anti-inflammatories.  Hard to be grateful when in pain and just struggling to move, walk and stand up straight.

All of this reminds me to be more cognizant of my upper aging even though my head tells me that I am still 18.  I forgot to stretch.  I forgot that there have been some muscles I haven't used for a while.  A while?  Maybe even years!  

So, during my healing process, I have been grateful for the "time off" and the ability to sit in a recliner and read to my heart's content.  It has given me the opportunity to rid myself of more of my accumulated library and I am now in the process of down-sizing.  

There is "good" in the twists too!  Can you find yours?