And so here I am, five months into a new year and in the middle of sorting out a world turned upside down by a car accident.

Am I still an early riser? I am, some days at 6:30, some days at 7:45. This morning, my husband – for what was, I believe, the first time in our seven years together – told me I look cute in the morning. And that was before I had coffee. I changed the way I think about myself, and my life is changed.

It’s funny the things you hear when you have no choice but to lay still for 15 minutes three times a week while a machine administers little electric shocks designed to recalibrate your muscles and nerve endings. Today, it was a young man, no more than 30, making the noises of an old man as he struggled to walk down the hall on his wounded ankle. I realized it doesn’t matter how old we are, healing is a challenging and painful process. Somehow, I found comfort in his discomfort. I needed to find comfort in his discomfort.

I had come to believe that my whiplash injury must have done permanent damage. While my all-important S-curve had returned, and the structure of my neck has been normalized, I worried that I would never be without this stubborn, aching pain my physical therapist couldn’t seem to massage out of my muscles.

This morning, when he asked me how I was feeling, I admitted my neck was very sore by the end of the day. “That’s perfectly normal,” he answered. “Your muscles just need to get used to this.”

Perfectly normal.

My muscles will get used to this.

I do my neck exercises in the morning now. It seems to fit.