Every now and then. . .

. . .you discover something about yourself by accident, and sometimes it's actually good news. That's what happened to me this weekend -- yesterday, actually.

I rode out to my uncle's house with my brother to just kind of hang out while he checked out my uncle's motorcycle (bad starter solenoid). Back before my car accident, which left me with a crushed wrist, my uncle would always ask me when I was planning on coming by to visit and play the guitar. Of course, for the past several years, there was no point in asking since I couldn't play anymore. I still have extremely limited range of motion in my left hand, and up until very recently, I couldn't even bend my wrist enough to be able to reach all the strings on a guitar with my fingers.

I'd tried playing a few times over the years whenever visiting a friend who owned a guitar -- I've always had trouble keeping my hands off them -- but, I quickly put them back down when I found that I just wasn't physically capable of playing any longer. I'd just about given up on the idea of ever playing one again, which was an extreme disappointment to me. One of my great small pleasures in life was the fact that, if I ever found myself bored or stuck in a rut, I could always pick up the guitar and work on a song I liked a lot, or try to learn a new one. In that sense, the ability to play even just a little bit is a gift that constantly renews itself.

It's also the one thing I've missed most since I had the wreck. So, to be able to play again after years of thinking I'd never do it again is a bit of a milestone.