As I sit day after day, awaiting inspiration’s arrival, I have begun to believe it will not arrive… at least not in the form I imagine. My desired muse is to be ushered in on the breath of peace, a wave of love, the flow of freedom. Where is my carefree, pain free day during which I can compose an inspirational message about survival and perseverance? If I was given this affliction for a reason, would it not be to help others through it also? To complete that journey, do I not need to come out on the other side… to witness that this is all for a purpose, a plan? Perhaps it is my own insularity that keeps me blinded from the truth.
More likely it is that on those blessed days I do not feel like sitting at my computer, using what little energy and liberty of spirit I possess, typing an entry for a blog. My good days are not chronicled because I am living them. Who wants to know that I have run a load of laundry on my own, or have gone to the grocery store to choose my own produce? These tasks which were once viewed as menial and every-day are now the very activities I strive to incorporate into my daily existence. It is a good day when I can pretend to be normal, and menial.
Today is a particularly rough day. This week I left my home, in cold weather, three days in a row. The third and longest day was spent in the company of beloved family, mostly in the car, but also included more city walking than my body can now tolerate (maybe 2 city blocks). On each of these days it was important for me to be out of my home, and each time I returned to my bed I knew I would feel the day’s activities in every nerve of my body for days to come… each day compounding the next exponentially. Yesterday I was motionless, leaving my bed perhaps 3 or 4 times all day. It is now 5pm on a Sunday and I have only managed to get myself up once earlier this afternoon.
This punishment I now endure is chosen, for I know the wrath of the beast living inside of me. We are well acquainted after just over a year and a half. Today it consumes my whole body, not just my right foot where it began. Yet I am at peace, as I sit in my gradually darkening bedroom, knowing this time it was my choices that put me in bed for days. I was able to choose the activities important to me. I savor those moments of imagined freedom as I physically escaped my bedroom three glorious days in a row. God blessed me with the time and energy to get to and through my appointed tasks. I was able to engage in conversation, for the most part, and participate in important events. Yes, it was important and worth the pain to make sure my son and I have good, strong, clean teeth. Yes, it was important for me to check in at a doctor’s office. Yes, it was important to spend time with my family traveling to a destination important to them.
Today’s muse arrived in silence, in pain, longing to be released from agony… with the smallest, most beautiful tear resting on its cheek. With this pain comes satisfaction. With this jabbing, searing, aching, poking, slicing, pulling, electric, frozen torture comes the realization that I beat the monster. I was able to be productive, even for a brief moment, while it had its back turned. When the monster roars, I am silent… praying for sleep and more effective pain management tools, and hopefully distracted by the computer. But when it is finally too tired from its rampage through my body, I am in charge… I call the shots… I get to be in control of my own life again… or at least I’m able to pretend.
"As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue."
~ Sir Richard Burton
"Everything can be taken from a man but the last of human freedoms, the right to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances - the right to choose one’s own way."
~ Viktor Frankl
"The great art of life is the sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain."
~ Lord Byron
"In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to continue and endure."
~ Heart Warrior Chosa
"After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs." ~ Emily Dickinson
"Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic." ~ Cesare Pavese
"It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience." ~ Julius Caesar
"There is no coming to consciousness without pain." ~ Carl Jung
"Pain adds rest unto pleasure, and teaches the luxury of health." ~ Martin Tupper
"Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute." ~ Mark Twain
"The space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more." ~ Dave Matthews Band
"We cannot learn without pain." ~ Aristotle
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life: that word is love." ~ Sophocles
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