In 2017, I tore a tendon in my left wrist in maybe the dumbest way possible: reaching for a book on my son’s dresser. I hit the sharp corner at just the wrong angle. Other than a sharp pain that faded quickly, I didn’t realize I’d done any real damage.
The next morning, my wrist felt tight. I moved my hand in a slow, circular motion to stretch it out, and when it tilted sideways toward my elbow, something snapped — painfully — like a rubber band recoiling inside my wrist.
I couldn’t move my hand without pain. Typing hurt. Tying a tie was impossible. Every movement made it worse. Since I’m left-handed and it was my left wrist, the whole thing felt even more debilitating. To top it off, we were in the middle of selling our janitorial supply company and launching our solar business. There’s never a good time to lose the use of a limb, but this was the worst possible time for me.
Our family doctor first diagnosed the injury as a ganglion cyst. It wasn’t. Later tests confirmed a partial tendon rupture. The orthopedic surgeon advised against surgery — the tear wasn’t complete, and the risk of added complications was high. Instead, I was fitted with a brace that locked my entire lower arm in place. It ran from my fingertips to my bicep. I wore it, day and night, for six weeks. The brace hurt nearly as much as the injury did.
There are far worse injuries, many that never heal. I’m grateful mine only required six weeks in a brace and another six of therapy. Still, it taught me something I didn’t really want to learn. I was too busy to be learning life lessons.
It taught me that healing isn’t the same as bouncing back. And that sometimes what we call “resilience” is just pressure to get back to who we were before anything went wrong.
For six weeks, I typed with one hand. When I couldn’t keep up, I sat next to our office admin and dictated, line by line, what she needed to type. The reports I was working on were tied to the due diligence of the company sale, so precision mattered. I felt ridiculous and slower than I’d ever been. I was dragging the process down, and I knew it. I also watched my left arm shrink from disuse. Not that it had ever been particularly muscular, but I could see the difference — and feel it every time I tried to do something.
I believed, naively, that after six weeks I’d be back to normal. But when the brace came off, my wrist was so stiff I could hardly move it. The therapy to restore motion hurt so much I found myself wanting to put the brace back on just to avoid it. More than once, I had to remind myself that the pain was part of healing. My body wasn’t resetting to its old defaults. It was learning how to work again.
I’ve been thinking about that injury lately. And thinking about the idea of “bouncing back.” It’s such a common phrase. We use it to describe business recoveries, divorce rebounds, or any time someone is “doing better.” I’ve used it for myself too — especially when I’ve tried to climb out of burnout.
And sometimes, the phrase works fine. It can be harmless, even hopeful.
But other times? It’s not.
Sometimes, “bouncing back” feels like a mandate. Like the only acceptable outcome is to rewind, get over it, and be who you were before the hard thing happened.
But what if we can’t? Or shouldn’t?
That injury slowed me down and forced me to ask for help. My son tied my ties. My wife helped me get jackets on. My coworker typed out lines of code as I dictated, character by character.
I hated it. I didn’t handle it well. I lost my temper, got impatient, and carried frustration into conversations that didn’t deserve it.
Honestly, I was scared. And tired. As I’ve said so many times in the last sixty days, I’ve tied so much of my worth to being fast, capable, and competent. This injury stripped all of that away.
Recovery was slower than I wanted. The tendon healed in the prescribed amount of time, but the strength, speed, and confidence I had before didn’t return overnight. I had to rebuild them — intentionally and slowly. And for a little while, at least, I had to question the way I’d always done things.
Even now, years later, I still remember how it felt to not be able to type a sentence without pain. That memory comes back when I’m rushing, or when I criticize myself for not moving fast enough. It reminds me that healing isn’t about returning to who we were. It’s about learning to move forward in a new way.
We love stories of resilience. The athlete who returns after an injury. The entrepreneur who recovers after a collapse. The marriage that survives a rupture. But we often skip the middle. The slow, frustrating in-between. The part where nothing is certain and everything hurts.
The idea of bouncing back makes it sound like everything should just fall back into place, pain-free and perfect.
But I don’t want to go back to who I was before. That version of me didn’t know how to rest. He avoided help, resisted grace, and mistook exhaustion for strength.
That injury taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way. Not just about my body — but about how I see myself. I’ve punished myself over and over for needing time. I’ve failed to offer myself the grace I try to give everyone else.
It’s been almost sixty days since I started my climb through the canyon. I’m still struggling with most of the same things. I still move too fast. Still expect too much. Still fall into old patterns where I believe the goal is to “get back to normal” instead of asking what’s worth carrying forward.
Sometimes, bouncing back is the best we can do. But when it isn’t, I want to grow forward instead. Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s painful. Even if it means letting go of who I used to be — or maybe, finding again who I really was.
Because the thing that broke? It might never be the same.
That doesn’t mean I’m broken.
It means I’m healing.
And sometimes, that is enough.
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