I Wasn’t Late. I Just Felt Late.
On crutches and letting go of the old timeline
I’m currently recovering from a hip arthroscopy and I’m non-weight bearing. As you can imagine, everything takes longer than it used to. Things that used to require almost no thought now require planning, balance, and patience.
The problem is that my schedule hasn’t fully caught up to that reality.
A few days ago I was leaving for a doctor’s appointment and managed to stumble on completely flat ground. Yeah, I’m that talented. I was on my crutches heading out the front door and both of them sort of stuttered underneath me. For a split second I thought I was going down. My breath caught. My heart started racing. It was one of those moments where your body reacts before your brain even has time to process what is happening.
I didn’t fall, but it scared me.
I stopped, closed my eyes, got myself steady again, took a breath and then started again. More carefully this time. More focused.
Later, I kept thinking about why it happened in the first place.
I don’t even know that I was late. Looking back, I think I just felt late.
I was still operating from the timeline I used before surgery. The timeline where I could grab my purse, walk out the door, get in the car, and be on my way without giving any of it a second thought.
Now every step requires more attention. Everything takes longer. From getting dressed to walking out the door. None of this is a problem unless I forget to account for it.
And I think that’s exactly what happened.
The stumble didn’t start when my crutches caught the ground. It started earlier when I expected myself to move at a pace that no longer matched my reality.
We keep expecting ourselves to function the way we did before the circumstances changed. We schedule our days according to an old version of our lives and then wonder why everything feels rushed.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize how many seasons of life require a different pace than the one that came before them.
A new mother can’t move through her day the same way she did before the baby. Everything takes longer now because she’s holding more at once. Someone caring for an aging parent is navigating responsibilities that didn’t exist before. Health challenges, grief, building a business, caring for family…life has a way of changing what we’re capable of in a given season.
The timeline changes.
What strikes me is how long it can take to notice that. We continue making plans based on what we used to be capable of. We continue expecting the same output, pace, and capacity. Then we spend the day feeling like we’re behind.
Standing there after I stumbled, trying to settle my heartbeat and regain my focus, I realized I wasn’t dealing with a crutch problem. I was dealing with an expectation problem.
Part of me was still moving through the world as though nothing had changed.
My body had already adjusted to reality.
My expectations hadn’t caught up yet.
Right now my body won’t let me fake that distinction.
If I rush, I stumble.
It’s immediate feedback.
And maybe that’s part of what this season is teaching me.
Not that I need to move slower forever.
Just that every season has a pace that fits it.
And life gets a lot harder when we keep trying to live at a pace that no longer matches our reality.