Breaking Out of the Cast

I'm just going to say it.

June was not our month.

Not in a cute "this month had its ups and downs" way. In a genuine "if June were a person I would unfollow them" kind of way, for me and for my daughter both.

What was supposed to be the start of summer turned into a fractured wrist, a (according to my daughter) ruined beach trip, and a missed second week of camp. And while she was nursing a cast, I was in month two of job searching after a layoff, which, if you have done it, you already know is its own kind of injury. Just one that does not come with a waterproof cover.

Some days I felt like every character from Inside Out had formed a committee in my brain, and none of them could agree on anything. Hope. Rejection. Optimism. Self doubt. Repeat. Every single day. Sometimes twice before lunch.

Here is the thing about a cast, though. It stops being a cast pretty fast. It becomes the reason for everything.

The beach trip that suddenly looked different. The shower she could not take alone. The extra ten minutes just to get dressed. The quiet, constant reminder that summer was not, in fact, going according to plan.

And if I am being honest, our moods started feeding off each other. By the time "the boys," my husband and our four year old, walked in the door every evening, it probably felt like they were entering a lion's den. Nobody planned for June to become a month we just had to survive. It just became that.

Then yesterday morning, something shifted.

My husband took her to the follow up appointment while I stayed home with our son. My phone rang, a FaceTime call, and before she said a single word, I already knew.

She was beaming.

The cast was off.

And somehow it was not just about a healed wrist. It felt like permission. She could swim without the cover. She could shower by herself again. (No offense to anyone currently in the newborn trenches, but bathing two kids again, every night, gave me full body flashbacks. I was fighting for my life.)

Watching her walk out of that appointment felt symbolic for both of us. So I am calling it now, officially, on July 2nd.

July is our Breakout Month.

Not "breakout" like an actress winning Best Breakout Performance, although, respectfully, we would also accept that trophy at this point.

Breakout of the cast. Out of the thing that has been quietly, physically holding us back.

Here is why I think this matters beyond one kid and one wrist. Most of us are carrying some version of a cast right now. Maybe yours is not fiberglass. Maybe it is a layoff. A hard diagnosis. A burnout season you have not told anyone about. A financial stretch you are just trying to get through. Something that has kept you from moving the way you normally would, even if nobody else can see it strapped to your arm.

The frustrating part of a cast is that it does not come off on your timeline. It comes off on its own. All you can really do is keep showing up to the appointments, literal or otherwise, and trust that eventually, someone tells you it is time.

So whatever your cast looks like, here is to the appointment where they finally cut it off.

As for us, we have got swimming to do, summer to catch up on, and a job search that is not going to job search itself. July has some catching up to do, and so do we.

Here is to the breakout month.