Taking Things Slow

Of the many things I would recommend doing on one's trip to Vietnam, dislocating your elbow does not make the list. Nonetheless, that is precisely what I managed to do a mere three days into my vacation.

Long story short, I fell off my mountain bike on the way from Dalat to Nha Trang. My right arm is mostly out of commission for about 2 weeks (with maybe another 4 weeks until I can expect to make a full recovery). As the existence of this blog post implies, I'm still able to type at a reasonable rate (one-handed). Still, everything, from brushing my teeth to getting dressed in the morning has become a much more complicated and time-consuming process. This is particularly frustrating since I tend to operate at a breakneck pace (which is probably how I got myself into this situation in the first place).

Still, it is always my first instinct to look on the bright side, so as I told my friend Tony the other night, I'm trying to use this opportunity to remind myself to slow down. He then shared his story about a broken foot that took five months to heal. Sometimes it's useful to remember that we are not unbreakable. If anything, the fact that we can break and recover makes me feel even stronger.