Lately, in quiet moments, I have been catching glimpses of a far off mystical land.
A land in which I am okay. Where I can simply relax and enjoy my life for what it is and maybe look for more and maybe not, but no matter what, I take it easy and I am forgiving and kind to myself.
In this magical kingdom, I finally learn to take life less seriously.
It’s only life, after all.
Life is too important to take seriously. Too much seriousness renders one rigid and fearful because the mind lacks the suppleness and strength to roll with the punches and handle life’s curveballs.
You are driving a car without shock absorbers. Instead, you end up like me, all curled up in a ball on the inside because you’re so scared of the bumps in the road that you stay off the road of life entirely and end up watching the world go by without you instead.
Holy crap, am I good with the metaphors.
Let me drag this back to the first person to avoid further intellectualizing.
I am just getting to the point where taking a far more relaxed and engaged attitude toward the world seems doable. It’s no longer a distant hazy and unreachable shore, like my very own mist-shrouded Avalon.
It’s a very real place and I am getting closer to it every day.
Slowly I am uncurling and stretching my mental limbs and trying to get the stiffness and soreness out of muscles long locked in place by fear and anxiety and the desperate need to blot out reality that result from them.
Maybe reality ain’t such a bad place after all. Maybe this big crazy world has a place for little ol’ me and there’s nothing out there waiting to eat me alive and I can finally relax, get comfortable, and dare I say it, even feel safe.
Feeling safe. What an astounding thought.
I mean, I know that I am safe. There are no predators after me. I have a modest but stable income that meets my modest but stable needs. I am free to live my life purely for the fun of it all and feel safe in feeling safe.
I can let my guard down now. I mean, what the fuck am I even guarding against? Life is not “just waiting for me to let my guard down so it can GET me.”
And hell, even if it was, there are worse things than getting got.
What I should be worried about is being worried about everything. That kind of inner stress is toxic and unsustainable. The engine of life, the id, has been fooled into working against itself like I’ve got both the accelerator and the brake pushed down all the way and it’s tearing my vehicle apart.
I won’t pretend that I can wave the proverbial magic wand and be straightened out and relaxed and well adjusted just like that.
The unbending process will take a while. It’s not easy to be your own chiropractor. Allowing myself to resume my natural shape will not be a linear process and there’s bound to be some dead ends and wrong turns on this trip of mine.
But I have a goal now. I know where I want to focus my limited energies. I am in pursuit of a feeling of health and I finally know what’s been blocking that for all these years.
It’s been Paxil. Ain’t that a bitch.
But now that my dose is lower, the great thaw is finally coming and I will finally have my long deferred springtime, maybe even in time for the real one.
But there’s no rush. Things will unfold as they should. Healing is natural and, like a houseplant, just needs sunshine and love to thrive.
Waiting is fullness.
More after the break.
This ain’t good
Well (literal) crap.
I have been forced to come to the conclusion that I am unwell.
Moreso than usual, that is.
The evidence is as such :
- My appetite has greatly diminished. It’s not to the point where it’s impossible for me to eat yet. I can even enjoy the taste to a limited degree. But making myself eat requires an act of will, especially at the beginning, and I have absolutely no enthusiasm for my food. I should have known the retreat of that damn Demon Hunger of mine was too good to be true.
- I’ve got the chills. I’m starting to wonder if it’s been as cold in my room as I thought it was because my feeling of refrigeration has definitely risen to the point of feeling actual chills now. Mild ones, all told, but once you’ve had the chills you will recognize them every time as they are awful. These spasms of coldness that wrack your body and make you feel like you can almost hear the arctic wind blowing through your soul. Ghastly.
- Nausea and a burning sensation after defecation. I felt quite ill after my most recent trip to the toilet. I felt this very strange and unpleasant hollow feeling in the middle of my lower abdomen along with the usual nausea, headache, and dizziness that I seem to get whenever anything goes wrong in me. And a very warm feeling all over my butt, like I was sitting on a heating pad. Wish I had looked into the bowl as that might have netted me some medically important information but I was too nauseous to even think about it.
So I don’t think I will be going to Wound Care tomorrow. Even in a mask. My dressings are both doing okay and I don’t wanna expose the other sick folk to whatever is going on with me right now.
And I sure as fuck don’t want to experience actual cold either.
Oh, and finally, because my life loves irony, all of this illness has come to me on the very day that I talked with my GP, Doctor Chao, and told him that besides the coloration issue with my feces I felt perfectly fine.
And when I said it, I did!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.