A few weeks ago, I hiked for 20 minutes for the first time in 8 months - 13 weeks out from a total hip replacement surgery. I began experiencing hip pain in my 20s. Over the next 15 years, I decreased the intensity of my physical exercise to avoid feeling pain. I justified the discomfort that I sat too much, or that I didn’t stretch enough. In reality, I was slowly compensating for a degenerative condition where I was losing cartilage and experiencing bone-on-bone. Over and above the decrease in my physical activity, I began to walk differently - shortening my gate and recruiting other muscles to help protect me from what was going on in the hip joint. These were subtle and happened slowly over time. And the adaptations became the new, less optimal normal. It’s hard to articulate how constant pain, both the anticipation of it and actually experiencing it, impacted me. It’s a vicious cycle of doing less, feeling badly, and not seeing a way out. It’s a cycle of constriction, increasing limits, trying to control, and trying not to fully feel. The thing about being in pain, is that, when we are in it, it can feel like we will always be in it. But there’s often a way out, even if we can’t see it at the time. At least that’s what I’m choosing to believe. It’s still surreal that they replaced bone with titanium and highly engineered rubber. And now my body is fusing bone around the metal to create a new normal. But, with the right support, we have miraculous abilities to heal.