Yesterday was the 5-month anniversary of the day I broke my back. I celebrated by picking up my baby and snuggling him, picking up my dog and snuggling him, and snuggling my husband (he’s too heavy to pick up). And, of course, I also spent some time thanking my lucky stars that I was not hurt worse and that I will make a full recovery, even if it takes a while. Breaking your back sucks, but I am still feeling incredibly grateful that my injury was not worse and that I can rely on my extensive knowledge of nutrition, anatomy, and fitness to help me recover.

I still have a few weeks of physical therapy, but I have been released from the care of the neurosurgeon so I am pretty much on my own for managing my recovery now. Honestly, I have felt like that since the beginning anyway. While the professionals are useful and helpful, how well and how quickly I heal is mostly dependent upon me. Most mornings I am up at 5:00 AM to do physical therapy, trigger point therapy, and myofascial release before Dylan gets up. Then throughout my day I try to fit in stretches or a little foam rolling while I play with Dylan and take care of the house. I also am careful how I move, and I try to avoid carrying Dylan around on my hip too much because it exacerbates my back pain and really throws my whole body out of whack. I also try to be sure I eat well (I always eat very high-quality food, but tend to not eat enough), drink enough water, take my supplements (the usual suspects plus extra calcium and vitamin D to support the bone healing process), and of course, get enough sleep. Most days I am not able to do all of the things I need to do to really take excellent care of myself, but I try, and what’s more important, I try to not stress or beat myself up if I don’t succeed.

Healing from a major injury feels like a full-time job in and of itself, so I try to stay realistic about my progress and the timeline for full recovery. My current expectation is to be back to my full strength and flexibility at 1 year out from the injury, but I am continually reminded by doctors, massage therapists, and physical therapists that 2 years is probably more realistic because soft tissue heals very slowly and I have a lot of soft tissue damage in the area around the break. The professionals are also telling me I should probably give up on ever running again because my L-1 vertebra is permanently lopsided from the break, and the pounding of running could cause problems with my facet joints (and thus entire body!) over time. But I have not given up hope yet! I would love to be able return to trail running with Cooper, one of my all-time favorite activities. So, we will see how things go. For now I’m focused on caring for myself as tenderly as possible, both physically and emotionally, and staying in the present moment rather than getting too far ahead of myself. It’s a very amazing thing to have something almost-really-horrible happen to you, you get a whole new perspective on things. So, even though the back breakage has derailed some plans, I am feeling really good about the outcome so far, and know that things will only continue to improve as time goes on.

That being said, this year I’ve decided to do resolutions because I am in the mood for goal setting! After an 18-month period that involved moving three times (twice over distances greater than 2,500 miles), getting pregnant, having a baby, and breaking my back I was just done. Tired, you know. Granted the moving and getting pregnant were definitely part of the plan, but going through all of those experiences in such quick succession did not leave me with the mental space or physical energy to live as consciously as I wanted to. But, Dylan will be seven months old this week and I’m ten weeks out from the back breakage, and I’m starting to get that itch again. That ambitious type-A only child itch to set some goals and achieve them! Yeah! I’m not one for letting the tides of life sway me, as y’all well know.

Without further ado, my new year’s resolution for 2010:

Be authentic, radiant, and fabulous.

Yep, that’s it. I initially started out with a little list of things that I wanted to accomplish this year and realized rather quickly that the list didn’t accurately represent what I was after in terms of self-improvement and transformation. I needed something bigger, grander, and all-encompassing. Now I know that a good goal is measurable, and I have not yet figured out how to measure this resolution, but it feels like a very accurate way to communicate the kind of change I want to see in myself this year. Let’s break it down:

Be Authentic. To me this means to be my authentic self. According to Merriam-Webster, one of the five definitions of authentic is “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character,” and I think that sums up my feelings exactly. Maybe you are one of those people who always behaves authentically in every situation. I generally do a pretty good job but could certainly do better. I’ve definitely let circumstances influence my choices more than they should have at various times in my life. (Example: working in a career I hate just for the money. So NOT authentic. For the record, my current job, stay-at-home-mom, rules and is very true to my personality, spirit, and character.) The gist of being authentic means to be my truest self at all times. The practical application, as far as I’m concerned, involves heeding my intuition and not sabotaging my gut instincts and true desires by being lazy or cowardly.

Be Radiant. This is just a fancy way of saying “look good,” which luckily I can accomplish simply by purchasing the correct beauty products. Ha! Just kidding! What this really means to me is to shine my light out into the world. To radiate my unique flavor of positive, uplifting, inspiring energy so that others may benefit. The practical application involves setting a good example in terms of my behavior, and being supportive of others rather than critical. That last part is what’s hard since I am very improvement-oriented by nature (that’s a nice way of saying I’m critical). A big part of sharing my positive energy involves giving other people the space to benefit from it in their own special way, and not trying to force a certain result. So I’ll be focusing on being a ray of sunshine for those around me and not getting caught up in the outcome.

Be Fabulous. Uh, does this one really need explaining? It means feather boas and glitter all the time, bitches! It also means having fun, making my own fun, making the best of things, laughing a lot, and being the best version of myself that I can be while forgiving myself for the many mistakes I will surely make. Technically the word fabulous means “of an incredible, astonishing, or exaggerated nature,” and I intend to have an incredible, astonishing, exaggeratedly awesome year. I want to look back on my year and be like “Day-am!” or “Wow!” I did it last year, so this one shouldn’t be too hard.

I’ve always enjoyed my family’s holiday traditions, and now that I’m a mom I am getting pretty amped up about establishing our own unique traditions. When I think about holidays growing up, I think about eating pumpkin pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving (and sometimes on Christmas, too), watching The Nutcracker on PBS on Christmas Eve, and of course watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Day. This year, I did none of those things! And oddly, I didn’t miss them too much, I suppose because we are in Texas away from family and because so much of our focus right now is on just getting through the days with the whole new baby and broken back situation.

Ideally I’d like to continue most of my childhood holiday traditions as well as create new ones for our little family. Of course most of the possible traditions I’m thinking of involve food! Some ideas include:

• Seven Fishes Christmas Eve Dinner
• Board games on Christmas Eve
• Driving around to look at holiday decorations before Christmas
• New pajamas for the kids on Christmas Eve
• Eating something other than turkey for Christmas dinner–maybe a beef roast or beef bourguignon
• A special New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day meal. Or maybe I should just get to decide on the New Year’s Day meal every year since it’s my birthday!
• New Year’s Day hike (I’ve actually done this several times when it’s been freakishly warm, but I’d like to institute it as an official tradition!)

I’d also like to get in the habit of making Christmas cookies each year. This is something I did a lot in my high school and college years, but stopped doing as I got older and more focused on healthy eating. I am still enamored with healthy eating, but I want to provide balance for my kids in terms of having some treats for special occasions. I mean, I grew up gorging myself on Halloween candy and Christmas cookies and I turned out okay! I like the idea of having “signature” cookies that I make each year, but I’m also given to experimentation in the kitchen so who knows. Some options I’m already considering for next year:

• Pine Nut Rosemary Shortbread
• Chocolate Crinkles
• Sugar Cookies (I made these this year and they were fantastic! I would do a few variations since sugar cookies are so versatile.)

All that being said, the real purpose of this post isn’t to tell you about our traditions, it’s to find out what your traditions are. I love hearing about the special and unique things that people do around the holidays, things they look forward to and that really “make” the season. So spill ‘em! What are your favorite holiday traditions?

The downside of all this looking forward is that it takes me away from the present moment and all of the joy I could experience now if I weren’t so focused on what’s next. Over the years I’ve read a lot about spirituality and pretty much every text I’ve studied espouses Living In The Moment. It’s the key to happiness, didn’t you know? I find the practice of Being Here Now exceedingly difficult. My mind is always cranking away, thinking about the past a bit but mostly planning and hoping and just generally focusing on the future. The optimist’s curse. I suppose it’s the pessimist’s, too, but I’m not much for worrying about everything that could go wrong.

In the aftermath of my injury, and now that the long slog of recovery has begun, it’s only natural for me to look ahead to what will undoubtedly be happier times, right? Well, yes and no. I started realizing that I was doing this and it made me think, are my current times not happy? Hmmm, no. They are happy, actually. Very, very happy. Will the future times be even better? Maybe, but who’s to say? In that context, it seems very silly to just toss away the happiness I could be feeling now by concentrating so hard on how much better everything will certainly be down the line.

All these years of trying to push my thoughts out of my head and just Be, with no success (literally, none–the harder I try the worse I fail, and if I don’t try at all I somehow fail even more spectacularly. Wrap your minds around that conundrum, spiritual gurus!), and now, suddenly, I’m enlightened. In the last two weeks, I have spent more time just existing in the present without thought to what’s next than in my whole life prior to breaking my back. I feel remarkably peaceful. It’s weird, and fantastic.

I believe a lot of my recent success with just being in the moment and appreciating it has to do with the very deep sense of gratitude I feel. Maybe you are like me and have spent a lot of your life knowing that you are fortunate and feeling like you should be more grateful and happier than you are, and wondering why it’s so damn hard. I have finally realized that intellectual gratitude is very different from actually feeling grateful. I am not sure whether it was the sudden realization that life can change in an instant (yes, I know this, you know this, we see evidence of it all the time in the paper and on the news, but for me it did take a near-brush with disaster to fully understand), or whether it was that combined with all of the emotions and responsibilities and perspectives that come with being a mother, but I feel so effortlessly thankful these days. Like, I don’t have to try, and that is the trick. I just am grateful, therefore it is easy in each moment to just feel happy.

Perhaps it sounds hokey, but I finally really do understand and believe that every instant is a new chance to choose happiness. I have long believed in our ability to choose our emotions much like we can choose our thoughts, but I’m a fiery one and that sort of conscious choice can be a challenge. In addition, I haven’t ever had much luck with trying to make myself feel one way or another. Sure, I’ve gotten better with practice, but until you really internalize this stuff it’s like putting on a mask and pretending to be someone else. I am not sure what the point of this post is. I don’t know that I have any real practical advice to help you get the place where I am, if you are not there yet. It requires a shift in perspective, and I think that while I was on the path (especially since Dylan was born), it would have taken me quite a while to arrive here had I not had my recent near-miss.

This is not to say that I am now perfect and never feel frustrated or sad, or never think about tomorrow or next week or next year. I still look ahead and feel hopeful because I expect better times. However, I’ve also managed recently to slow down enough to experience my life as it is happening, and it gives me such a positive and peaceful feeling. I encourage you to take a look around your life and notice the good things. I’m not necessarily talking about big things, they can be small, they can be anything. What are you thankful for right now at this very minute? Think about it, and feel happy.

When this initially happened I had many thoughts in quick succession: Why did that dog charge me? I like dogs, dogs like me, why didn’t that dog like me? How embarrassing to get knocked over at the park. Man, this hurts. I need to get up now and walk it off. Okay, I can’t get up just yet, I’ll just roll over. Wow, this really hurts. Oh shit, we are probably going to have to go straight home and Cooper hasn’t even had a chance to play yet. Those people are asking me if I’m okay, am I okay? No, nope, I don’t think I’m okay. Man, this is really, really starting to hurt bad. Where’s Cooper? Someone get Cooper. Okay, the pain is getting worse, I can’t move. I need to call Brian. Someone needs to call an ambulance. Did someone get Cooper? Are his ears back or are they up? They’re back? Oh no. Ow. Ow. OW. OW.

At the ER they discovered that I had a compression fracture in my L-1, so I had to be transferred to another hospital, the trauma center, where the neurosurgeons are. I narrowly avoided having my clothes cut off me when I arrived at the trauma center (I was like, “Please! I like these pants and it’s so hard to find clothes that fit!”). I got a catheter (sucky, but not as sucky as it sounds). I spent one night in the 24-hr observation unit, and then I moved into the penthouse suite for another few nights. “Penthouse suite” is code for “a corner room up in the 9th floor neurology unit,” and I’m willing to bet it was the nicest hospital room I’ll ever see. I was happy to have my own room (all the rooms on that floor are private, wow!) and lots of windows. I couldn’t see anything out the windows except sky because I had to lay down in bed, but I was grateful for the light. The staff were very friendly. The food was horrible. Every time they brought me a meal I felt like someone was trying to kill me.

Brian brought Dylan to visit me everyday for a couple of hours, and it was heartbreaking. After being jacked up on fentanyl, hydromorphone (Dilaudid is the brand name, and this wonder drug that totally eliminated my appendicitis pain a few years ago just barely took the edge off my broken back pain. Breaking your back hurts worse than having appendicitis, just FYI), and morphine I couldn’t breastfeed Dylan. It was so, so sad to see my beautiful baby get hungry and then watch him drink a bottle instead of cuddling up in my arms to nurse. Being separated from Dylan was by far the worst part of the hospital stay. I cried every day when they left, it was just so sad to see them walk out and know that I had to spend another night alone in the hospital, apart from my baby.

While this whole situation generally just sucks in a million ways, I have tried my hardest to stay positive. Here are some of the silver lining thoughts I’ve been cycling through my brain in an effort to prevent lots of feeling sorry for myself: Although it is going to take a long time, I will most likely make a full recovery. It’s a good thing I wasn’t holding Dylan when I got run down. Thank God it was me and not Cooper who got hurt. It’s good that Brian had this opportunity to bond with Dylan (seriously, those two are like, tight), because he wouldn’t have with me around; he is an even more amazing dad than before. I’m so lucky I didn’t have a spinal cord injury or head injury. I’m so lucky I have such wonderful friends and family who have called, emailed, sent flowers, and in the case of Brian’s mom and my dad, flown down here to help while we line up long-term assistance since my injury has left me unable to care for Dylan. I’d rather have a broken back and have so many great people in my life than be healthy and lonely and unloved. Also, thank God we are not in Seattle! Yes, I’d rather have a broken back in Austin than a healthy back in Seattle. Who knows, if we had stayed there I might’ve died from depression by now anyway!

So, I’m just trying to stay focused on the positive thoughts and the day-to-day of recovering. This means lots of nursing Dylan (still working on getting my milk supply back since it dropped while I was wasting away in the hospital, despite frequent pumping), eating right (and a lot!), taking lots of supplements to encourage the bone to rebuild, and of course following the doctor’s orders about wearing my back brace and restricting my movement and activity. Time seems to be passing very slowly now, it feels like I’ll never be out of the brace and strong enough to hold Dylan again, but I know that eventually I will. I am looking forward to the day when my body barely has a memory of this incident and I feel stronger and more vibrant than ever!