Today was an unexpected holiday. The school I was scheduled to be at was on holiday because they had an event on Saturday, but they'd forgotten to tell my company. I'll go Thursday instead.

On Wednesday I'm going to a doctor to make a fuss about the herniated discs I've had for oh-so-long. For the longest time I'd given up hope that anything could be done about it, which was unwarranted. I didn't give medicine a fair shake (though I shook chiropractic for longer than it deserved, and I'm still bitter about it). I was focused on school, and there were whispers that the doctors would eventually want to do risky surgery; a possible six-month bed rest was above the acceptable consequence threshold. Looking back, after reading much more about disc herniations, I see that what I was afraid of was a worst case scenario taken to eyebrow raising extremes. And even so, looking back, it would have been wiser to take six months off school if that's what it took to have a fixed back.

But then . . . then there was the pressure to transfer to BYU, and then the pressure to get in as much as I could before my mission, and then pressure to graduate. And then there was no money, no job, and no insurance.

There are not a lot of things I honestly regret, but not taking care of my back earlier is one of them. I regret not pushing for resolution. I regret settling. I regret procrastinating. My injury hung over my teens and early twenties like a sour fog.

But I'm twenty-three now. I ain't no child. I'm going to get this fixed now or find out for certain that it's unfixable.

I want very badly for it to be fixed.

If I sound a little stiff today, it's because the pertinent emotions are scary. I don't want to touch them. Maybe if you were here.