Getting Out of a Rut/"Pharaoh's Song" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Do you find that vacations are good for getting you out of a rut?

I often come back from vacation to look at our everyday lives with new eyes.  I (and we) have changed various things after vacations - painted rooms, started blogs.  This time, there was one re-arrangement, but mostly I had a change of attitude.

[Altitude helps.  Here's the view from Craggy Gardens, on the Blue Ridge Parkway.]

Before vacation, I was getting resigned to my knee being the way it was - and I wasn't even noticing that I was resigned.  My knee was (and is) still often stiff, and I still occasionally ended up limping by the end of the evening.  If I do too much - particularly driving or standing - the occasional pains get a lot worse. It still limits a lot of what I do. 

The week of the choir concert was the worst.  We stood for the last rehearsal, and I also had to drive twice that day (I usually only drive twice a week).  I have trouble standing in line at the grocery store, and we stood still for over an hour.  The next day was very bad. 

I also blew my voice out that week with concert rehearsals, the service, the concert, and rehearsals for Joseph, which started the following day.  The following choir rehearsal and Sunday finished my voice off because there were very few sopranos so I strained my voice trying to reach notes I wasn't ready to sing. 

The next week, my voice teacher told me to take it easy on vacation, and, if I wasn't better afterwards, I should see a doctor.  That's how bad my voice was.

Between the knee and the voice, I thought that there was no way I could get through rehearsals for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - much less performances!  I was probably going to have to drop out when we got back. 

Vacation was wonderful - very busy and not as relaxing as some, but it was probably more what I needed.  I overdid it - particularly hiking in the Smokies, 1/2 mile, uphill all the way, to Clingman's Dome, the highest spot in Tennessee (photo of stupid hiker, to the right)(photo of the view, taken by older son, below right).  Actually, the downhill was worse for my knee than the uphill.  Either way, even my good knee was sore by the time we were done. 

Because I knew that I was trying to do so much, and because there were fewer distractions, I took better care of my knee when I wasn't overdoing it.  I iced my knee, often numerous times a day, and focused on stretching and my physical therapy exercises. 

I realized, when we came back, that taking care of my knee had gone to the background at home.  After all, it's been almost six months!  It certainly shouldn't take up all that much time - mine or anybody else's. I'm too busy to spend that much time and focus on myself. 

But...

In April, I discussed with my doctor how slowly my knee was healing.  He said I could keep doing things more naturally, or I could take Celebrex (major side effects) or have a steroid shot directly into my knee.  You can only do that a limited number of times in your life, and, since I'm hard on my body, I don't want to use one up this early!

If I'm going to take the natural route, I'm going to have to focus more, even if it takes time away from other things.

Even though we were busy on vacation, I'm more relaxed now than I was before we left.  I'm not getting tension headaches/migraines every afternoon anymore, and I think it's also better for my knee when my body is more relaxed. 

This week I've been more focused on what I need to do for my knee.  Yesterday I drove twice and stood for part of the Joseph rehearsal.  I've had three rehearsals and a voice lesson this week and my voice is still better than when we left.  I was feeling great on the way home from the rehearsal yesterday.  Encouragingly, I haven't had any major knee problems as a result of yesterday. 

I'm feeling competent, which I haven't really felt for months.  I don't do well without that.

We did rearrange one thing when we got back.  The computer is on my regular desk.  That wasn't such a problem when we first got a computer.  Check e-mail, do bills, keep track of things, etc.  It all went together. 

 Now, I have more creative things I also do at my desk - writing, everything to do with the camera and the photoblog, music, etc.  All of these things were scattered around the room.   If they ended up on the desk, they inevitably got covered up by more important things to do. 

The computer we had at the other desk had pretty much died so we cleaned that desk up and moved all the household stuff to that.  Now, my desk has a place for CDs, journals, the camera and all it's parts, articles I want to blog about, and I even have a place for my music (choir, voice lesson, and Joseph) which had previously gotten lost under the mail. I even moved the phone to the other desk to make this one seem more peaceful. 

 I feel spoiled!

[Above, right:  relaxing, peaceful, creative space.  Below, right:  the work desk - this is what the other one looked like before.]

Here's Song of the King, from Joseph.  I missed a rehearsal last week so last night was the first time that I had a chance to sing it.  The women sing the "bap shu wa du wa"'s.  Fun.

 

I'm singing second soprano for most of the songs.  We have two, really strong, first sopranos so I can focus on the harmony.  There are parts where I'm the only one singing a certain note so it's really interesting to get it all on my own.  We've gone through all of the music so next week we start staging.  I've never been in a play before so I'm excited!

This is how I'm supposed to feel when seasonal depression is over in early spring.  I'm glad it's finally happening.