53 Half-Hour at a Time
Something that helped get me through all this was adopting a philosophy that I recalled from the movie Touching The Void.
Rather than distressing if I could make it another day, let alone another week, I broke my day down into half-hour segments. In my mind, I just clocked off a half hour at a time and refused to think beyond that.
Of course, this otherwise sound approach of living a half-hour at a time did have its drawbacks.
One day I had this nagging feeling that I had should pull out my passport to check my entry stamp to Peru. I had been told that you get an automatic three months’ stay upon entry, but I now noticed that the stamp only authorized thirty days, and that thirty days was up tomorrow.
When I explained the situation to Mrs. Arias, she offered to take my passport in to the immigration office the next day, and thankfully she was able to get my visa extended for another thirty days.
I mention this incident simply to illustrate that my days were so redundant that I was hardly even aware of what the date was anymore.
This incident with my visa did cause me to deliberate on related decisions ahead of me, such as making a decision on when I could travel, and rebooking my flight.
Exerting the smallest amount of energy was still pretty overwhelming for me. Hobbling 30 or 40 feet on crutches was about my maximum, as my foot would become a dark throbbing purple where all the blood collected, since the damage caused by my accident had thwarted my body’s ability to pass blood through my leg.
Rather than distressing if I could make it another day, let alone another week, I broke my day down into half-hour segments. In my mind, I just clocked off a half hour at a time and refused to think beyond that.
Of course, this otherwise sound approach of living a half-hour at a time did have its drawbacks.
One day I had this nagging feeling that I had should pull out my passport to check my entry stamp to Peru. I had been told that you get an automatic three months’ stay upon entry, but I now noticed that the stamp only authorized thirty days, and that thirty days was up tomorrow.
When I explained the situation to Mrs. Arias, she offered to take my passport in to the immigration office the next day, and thankfully she was able to get my visa extended for another thirty days.
I mention this incident simply to illustrate that my days were so redundant that I was hardly even aware of what the date was anymore.
This incident with my visa did cause me to deliberate on related decisions ahead of me, such as making a decision on when I could travel, and rebooking my flight.
Exerting the smallest amount of energy was still pretty overwhelming for me. Hobbling 30 or 40 feet on crutches was about my maximum, as my foot would become a dark throbbing purple where all the blood collected, since the damage caused by my accident had thwarted my body’s ability to pass blood through my leg.
<< Home