Getting Back on the Tracks

We see them every day.  If we are lucky, we don't get stuck at the tracks waiting for them.  Trains are a daily part of our lives.  They transport pretty much everything imaginable to nearly every part of our country.  What people often don't realize is how often this seemingly reliable form of transportation is actually off its tracks.  As the wife of a crane operator, I have had an inside view to how often this happens.  They come off the tracks at all times of the day and the night.  For years, we knew that the phone ringing in the middle of the night instantly meant another call out.


Many times the derailment was just a car or two off the tracks in the railyard.  They weren't travelling fast.  One or two quick lifts and the train is back on the tracks and off and away they go again. 


Many times the derailment is much more extensive but still after a day of hard work, they are back on the rails and going again.


Then there are the devastating derailments where all the cars must be cleared away and nothing is salvageable.  These cleanups can take weeks at times to get completely cleared up.


This year I have watched both myself and my teammates battle varying degrees of derailments in our year.  In some cases, it is a change in schedule.  We make a small adjustment and away we go.  We get sick/injured or a loved one gets sick or we get called away to work.  We make bigger adjustments.


Right now I feel like I am at the tail end of a clean up for the last type of derailment.  It has been a very long and frustrating four weeks.  Many of the physical symptoms that I have struggled with the past while have really started to subside, especially with my poor brain.  I am starting to train slowly and carefully again but it is exactly that - slow.  I can not get over how much strength I have lost over the past month.  I try to keep reminding myself that I am still stronger now, even after the break, than I was at the start of the year but....  It still feels like starting all over again.  I am extremely frustrated and struggling with anger over the entire situation.


Yet I will not allow this to derail my entire year.  In all likelihood, many of my goals will not be reached this year.  With the hurdles, obstacles and derailments I have dealt with in the first half of the year, it seems unlikely.  That said, I am going to honor the first goal that we all agreed to.  I will not give up.  I will not quit.  I will keep showing up.  I will keep pushing forward.  I am putting this train back on the tracks.