Last weekend was my annual writer’s and horn player’s retreat with my dear friend Beth. We always spend it at a local state park cabin, but this year, we changed cabins so my dog could come along. It was a great change; more room, a fireplace, and puppy snuggles all around.

I’ve made a point to write about previous visits because the cabin we used to reserve has a series of steps going down to it. The very first year we did this, it was just a summer escape. Friends came to visit Beth and invited me to go along for lunch — but I couldn’t go, because my right knee had locked. I spent far too much time, after they left, trying to get my knee to cooperate; I won’t go into the ugly details.

It occurred to me on this most recent trip that I used to spend a lot of time just figuring out the best way to get around. When I had endless stairs to deal with, I had to plan my trips, including the emotional tax of working myself up to making the trip — up or down. It took strategy; how much could I carry? How long should I wait between trips? Had I thought enough to distribute weight properly? Had I done everything possible to make transporting items easier?

Throw into this mix that we always meet with our horns, and unless a horn has a detached bell, the case is just plain awkward to carry. I remember as a kid, walking with my horn to and from school, I walked with a certain gait and rhythm built around that horn case smacking the side of my leg with each stride. Now I have a gig bag with straps, and it’s a bit easier, but still off-balance and awkward. If something were to happen to my instrument while carrying it, I would be absolutely heartbroken.

Even thinking about this stuff, now, years afterward, spikes my anxiety. I spent so much time and energy just figuring out simple things that I didn’t have nearly as much time for restoration, which is one of the points of these trips. Yes, we write; yes, we play duets; yes, we gab half the night away, but there’s also time to watch the fog drift across the lake and listen to the crackle of a fire.

Each step I take that brings me closer to full health is also a step away from the days when so much of my energy was expended on things that depleted me instead of restoring me. I waited until recently to share a story for the first time with my husband and my friends; the story of how I woke up, one morning, stuck in bed because my knee had locked during the night, and the things I needed were are the opposite end of the (small!) house. It took me well over an hour to make my way to the next bedroom over, unfold my travel wheelchair, and scoot down the hallway to grab my brace and cane. An hour — not just because my knee was locked in a position that prevented me putting any weight on it, but because I was so morbidly obese that doing something as simple as hopping was completely out of the question.

Although — honestly — I’m not so sure I’d hop down the hallway now, but I no longer have a reason for such things. And that’s the point in this; the time and the emotional and physical tolls I paid for so many years, simply just getting through each day, are now gone. I get around like a normal person, and when these issues took a big bite out of any restorative time I might have designed for myself, before, I now get the full benefit of not having to worry about it.

It means my time I design for the purpose of restoration is spent on exactly that. I get to recharge my batteries without constant depletion. Now I get to happily enjoy the view without worrying what the view will cost me.