Rebuilding Borda

Tomorrow morning I am having a fairly big shoulder surgery (well by the time you are reading this, I have probably already had it...or maybe even right this second!)....I'm pretty nervous, but it is definitely an important step in a process that has been going on for the last year.  If you want to know more about my actual shoulder...and what happened with that...check out this post !The purpose of this is more to talk about how hard not recovering from an injury like expected has been mentally and emotionally. It's definitely the hardest year I think I have ever had.   My expectation was that I would get back to normal Jenny super fast after my last surgery...get back to training, make regionals, lift at nationals.....normal!  Well that definitely did not happen.I do not think one has gone by in the last year that I did not have something that reminded me I was limited.  As much as I love helping patients and helping people improve their CrossFit skills, it's also hard to do that everyday but not be able to do those things yourself.  Constant reminders that you are not at your best.  Also, not being able to do things you love.  I love snatching, jerks, muscle ups, pull-ups, and especially handstand push ups...and as my shoulder deteriorated I lost those things.  I actually stepped away from even trying to do CrossFit and lifting for the past few months, because every time I tried, I got sad.   It's great to see athletes pushing through injuries and modifying activity and still killing it, but I just did not have that in me.  And...thats ok!I have gone through the stages of grief, many times.  Justin Sua has a fantastic podcast about this actually!  Was good for me to hear that all of that is totally normal. Normal to be angry and sad and depressed...and then all of those things over and over again.  If you follow along on Instagram, you might not even know my shoulder never got better...I try not to post about it over and over.  Sure I could post about it being hard, what workouts I can do, my progress (or regress, as has been more my case) daily...it might even be good for a few people to see.  But for me, that was not what I needed to be doing.  I did not want to make my life all about this.  I didn't want to be the person who couldn't get over it (at least publicly), even though I know I am definitely not over it.Which brings me to another point... really the point of this whole post...I am more than someone who is good at exercising.  I always knew this....but didn't have to really know it until all of this.  Of course I know that all of my worth does not lie in how much weight I can lift or how fast I can do Fran...but it's really easy to put a lot of emphasis on that. Easy to live your life making sure you eat perfectly, don't stay up too late, don't do anything that would get in the way of the time you need to put in to be the best you can be. And then suddenly when you don't need to do that, what do you have?   That was hard.  Still is hard.  As I recover from this, if I get back to being able to do all these things I love (trying to be positive, but also realistic!), I will remember all of the things I am besides just good at exercise...and will continue to value those things and share that part of my life with all of you.Ready to take this next step. Ready to continue this whole rebuilding process, both physically and mentally. But will continue to remember all the lessons I have learned along the way.