All settled in...finally!

Whew! The past month (wow, has it been that long since I updated?!) has been one big whirlwind of packing, unpacking, packing and unpacking again, but it was all worth it. I've finally moved into a permanent place in San Diego and am ready to start the next stage in my life here.

I arrived on Tuesday, April 28 after a relatively uneventful pair of flights from Richmond to Newark and Newark to San Diego. I picked up my rental car and and made my way from the airport to my home for the next several weeks, Paul Jacobson's house. Paul is a client at Awakenings who generously offered to have me as his guest while I tried to figure out where I was going to live. Boy, did I get a good deal there! Paul lives in a beautiful, one-story, completely accessible home in a private neighborhood about 20 minutes from Awakenings. It was the perfect place for me to rest and regroup, and I was very lucky to be a guest there.

Paul's Great Dane, Gigi, enjoying the California sunshine in the backyard

The Awakenings fundraiser was the day after my arrival, and was conveniently held at an estate home in Santaluz, Paul's neighborhood. The fundraiser consisted of an evening with Jack Tempchin, songwriter for the Eagles, and was a great success. Most of the Awakenings clients were in attendance, enjoying the food offered by different area restaurants and local wine and beer (some of us more than others...). Jack played two sets with his band, and there was a silent auction and a raffle as well. It was moving to see so many people inspired by the Awakenings cause - many of them after only learning about the organization that evening. The staff did an incredible job preparing for and putting on the event - the setting was beautiful and even the tiniest details were taken care of. Hopefully the word will continue to spread about the work they are doing...after an evening like that, I don't think it will take long. I had a fantastic time, to say the least. It was a great welcome back to Awakenings, and to California.

Zach, Patty (an Awakenings client), Andrew, Adam and me at the event

The following week, my car arrived (yay!) and my workouts started up again, as did my job working for Rivanna. My training regimen at Awakenings is considerably less intense than it was during my previous stay here - I have to have time to do something other than exercise and get massages, after all! I'm currently spending two hours twice a week doing personal training, one hour on the gait trainer, two hours on the FES bike, an hour of Pilates, one hour of massage and two acupuncture sessions. While right now it still feels like a lot, I'm reluctant to cut out any of the services Awakenings has to offer until I can assess what is working best for me. Thanks to my two week break, I don't really feel like I've had enough uninterrupted time to figure out how my body reacts to different therapies and what will be best for my recovery. Right now it just feels good to get back into the swing of things, rediscovering the progress I made when I was here before and hopefully making new progress!

My next obstacle, after getting myself here, was finding a place to live. I scoured craigslist daily looking for the perfect two bedroom place in Ocean Beach that would work for both Matt and me, but it started to look like that place didn't exist. Then, Matt told me about another living opportunity - Ben, an Awakenings client, was looking for someone to fill a newly vacant room in his apartment. I took a look at the place and, while I liked it, was still on the fence about it. The building is kind of old and sits atop a rather steep hill, and the apartment only has one bathroom. On the upside, however, it has already been modified to suit Ben's needs (meaning there is a small ramp leading up to the front door and the bathroom door has been widened). I debated for about a week, drove around Ocean Beach and talked it over with Matt (and everyone else who would listen...) and then went back and looked at Ben's place again. On a different day, it looked completely different. He allayed my fears about several things (apparently a couple blocks down the hill isn't quite so steep and we're going to get our own flat parking spaces, for example) and there are a few features that were just too difficult to pass up. The apartment building literally sits on a cliff that overlooks the ocean, and while our unit doesn't have a view of the water, the pool deck right around the corner has an incredible view. There is a bright, good-sized patio off of my room, and the apartment has a very open floor plan with no tiny hallways and tight spaces. So I took the plunge!

my new roommate, Ben, and me at the fundraiser

The next week was spent packing my clothes (again), moving from Paul's, wandering around (for hours) at IKEA, assembling furniture (even more hours) from IKEA, and finding a home in my small room for my racks and racks of clothing (some of those sweaters are going to have to go...). Four days later, though - I'm in! There are just a few finishing touches to put on the room - with the exception of one thing. My mattress is on its way (or soon to be) from Virginia, along with some boxes of books and DVDs. It will take about a week to get here, so until that happens I'm sleeping on an air mattress. Not exactly ideal, but it's actually pretty comfortable and will provide a great place for friends and family to crash when they come to visit! I definitely feel like I made the right decision and I'm really happy here. The apartment is located in Encinitas, only about 5 minutes from Awakenings. It's a much better location for me than Ocean Beach, I think - more my scene, and more centrally located. This doesn't hurt either:

view from the pool deck of the first real sunset since I moved in

Things are finally started to come together, it seems. I'm still a little bit in limbo on a couple of fronts - the work I'm going to be doing for Awakenings, for one thing, isn't quite nailed down yet, but we're in the process of figuring that out. I haven't found another part time job yet to supplement the work I'm doing for Rivanna, but I'm rapidly seeing that it's going to be a necessity - California isn't cheap, and neither is Awakenings. I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks I can figure some of these things out, but right now I'm just happy to finally be doing something that I'm genuinely excited about. The past year has been filled with small achievements that, while they have been immeasurably important to my rehabilitation and ability to resume a normal life, certainly didn't fit in the category of real, regardless-of-injury life achievements. Learning to drive, for example, was definitely an important step, but not as cool the second time around :/ While I don't want to take any significance away from those things, because I am proud of what I have accomplished this year and grateful that I've been able to progress as much as I have, it just feels good to be moving forward in a new way. Here's to new beginnings!