Happiness and Hobbits

"I really hope that everything with my leg works out. 

I can't revert to being single and get bad medical news all in one month. 

Binge watching LOTR can only get a girl so far!" 

The above bit of text comes from a post I wrote earlier this month. After breaking up with my boyfriend, I've been finding it quite difficult to go back to being single. There are lots of things about being on my own that are hard to adjust or, I guess, revert back to. The person to whom I want to tell all the odd things that happened during the day, all the horrible puns I came up with, all the seemingly trivial and insignificant but still interesting or thought provoking things, things that almost everyone overlooks as simple or trivial because they happen everyday but are all the more special and beautiful precisely because they are always overlooked...

When I broke up, I did the one thing that anybody who has just broken up would do - I cried. I cried a lot. Between all the crying, I sounded like an elephant with allergies when I blew my nose into a tissue - one of the nice kind that smell faintly of citrus and bergamot. And then I cried even harder because I get so excited by something as simple as scented tissues and that's exactly the kind of thing I would have shared with my boyfriend when he was still my boyfriend... except he's not my boyfriend anymore and now I have nobody to share my love of scented tissues with. There isn't anybody who gets as excited about the same things as me anymore, or anyone who gets excited just because I am excited about something. And vice versa - there's nobody who can tell me all the things that excite or interest them, nobody to share things with.

After (more like between periods of) crying, I did the next best logical thing: I binge-watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended addition) at least four times within two and a half weeks. Middle Earth is my happy place - hobbits, elves, the Shire, Rivendell, hobbit holes, the shortcut to mushrooms, the oh so pretty cake served at Bilbo's birthday party and the fireworks shaped like toadstools. Add to that all the memories of watching the entire trilogy for the first time over the span of two days while I camped out in my basement to escape the summer heat the year I started grade eight and how I played with Lego the entire time while watching the movies. Breaking up sucked, but at least I had the Lord of the Rings movies to cheer me up distract me.

And then I got the bad news that I was expecting at an appointment that I was very much dreading. My leg is still broken. And while amazing in many ways, the Lord of the Rings movies do not offer the sort of happiness or distraction that I need to help me get through both a painful breakup and getting unfortunate, undesirable, unwelcome medical news. At least, not enough of it. I don't think that devastating is too harsh a word to describe how I feel about the medical news I got. My leg is still broken. It is going to continue to hurt. It's going to continue to draw attention to me; people will keep on asking me why I am limping; it will still be the first thing people notice about me. It's going to continue to limit what I can do. While there are many good things going on in my life, this is beyond frustrating and exhausting. It's not something that can be pushed under the rug or be overlooked. Not even watching Gimli talk about a dwarf army - angry and filthy - or getting to swim with the hairy dwarf women just won't do it.

I think that the medical news makes things much harder. Not only am I single now, but I have more surgery to look forward to. On top of that, I have months of pain ahead of me while I get through the probation period at my new job before I have said surgery. For a lack of better words, it dampens my spirits a bit. I'm still happy and enjoying quite a few things in my life, but at the end of the day I still have to contend with being newly single and having a broken leg. I mean, I can't even go for a walk, one of the things I love to do the most, to distract me from all my thoughts on being single/missing the relationship because I can't actually walk more than a few blocks before being in a lot of pain.

On the bright side (and there is almost always a bright side. Not quite always , but almost and this is on of those cases that falls into that category), I've started reading The Silmarillion by Tolkien. And, I mean, reading Tolkien is almost as good as watching the Shire unfold in front of you on your television screen. And books are pretty much akin to happiness. So if Middle Earth and reading can individually both be classified as a form of happiness, than surely reading about Middle Earth (along with watching a bit more of the LOTR trilogy) should provide enough happiness and distraction to get me over both the break up and the bad medical news, right?

Who knows! Maybe the combination of reading Tolkien and watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy will turn out to be the best break up/bad medical news cure ever. I'll make millions, and the Tolkien estate will ask me to play a role (maybe Rosie Cotton) if they ever film a remake of the trilogy!

Anyways, what I'm trying to get at, is that the combination of a break up and bad medical news can be hard to deal with. I'm doing my best to get through it. Despite how much it hurts to walk, in all honesty, my new job is a god send. It's keeps me busy and sometimes, by the time I get home for the day, I am too tired to think about anything else. I'm also starting lots of things that take lots of concentration.

As previously mentioned, I've started working on a butterfly quilt - I'm currently working on cross stitching all the individual butterfly squares. When that's done I'm going to buy lots of lovely, cheerful fabric and hand stitch the entire thing together.

I'm also going to start the super adorable cross stitch kit that my best friend, B., got me fro my birthday! I usually only like to have one cross stitch project going at a time. The butterfly quilt is a  really big project, but B. pointed out that it's kind of a modular project - I can start something else between each butterfly! XD

And the elephant sewing project I am itching to get started on! Looking forward to being doing work for the week after tomorrow. I know what I'm spending me weekend on (other than hemming my scrub pants of course). Oh! I almost forgot. I ended up returning the scrub pants I am wearing in the picture I posted earlier this month. I know nursing is not meant to be sexy, but I found scrub pants that fit much better and bought a whole bunch of them. I don't have to be sexy at work, but it's nice to know my butt will still look amazing not be drowning in fabric.

Oh! And just because, here are my guinea pigs - Mospy (bottom picture) and Flopsy. They are always a source of happiness.