I wonder things sometimes… and it is probably dangerous that I do so. Circumstance has me back in the town in which I was diagnosed. On a daily basis, I usually have about an hour and a half to kill, so sometimes I go wandering around town. It’s not for any real purpose, aside from seeing things. Today, I made a turn in a different place than I thought I had, so I drove by the building in which my diagnosis was delivered. The parking garage where I parked when I took my first IV steroid course. The building where that happened. Yesterday, I drove by the school I was photographing when I ultimately decided to follow through regarding my mysterious limp. Lots of big, heavy places in terms of my current existence. So having been near all of those places, I took a minute and stepped to the side and shook hands with each of the specters that I had unleashed. The memories. The residual traumas. I had known the expression that “places only have power over you if you let them.” I hadn’t had a lot of practice in putting those words to use, but I did it today.
I didn’t stop there, and I am working on a related post that is probably going to take a while to finish in which I’ll dig a little deeper on themes and variations of this thought… but I realized that thoughts are the same way. Which then ties back usefully to the old “be kind to yourself” idea. which then circles back into allowing yourself to make decisions about what you can and can’t do at any particular moment without guilt. I think 99% of people who have chronic illnesses find themselves redoubling their efforts to try to do the best job that they can within the frameworks they have been given. Well… maybe once they start being honest with themselves and everyone who is close to them.
I was apparently introspective today. I kept my mental train chugging. I’m going to go ahead and blame the All-Star Special that I had while Savitar was getting irradiated. I realized that I don’t really believe that maybe one person is inherently *that* much braver than the next person. Kind of like your cat when you back him into a corner (another fun expression!), when you remove the option of escape or avoidance, we ALL get a little brave. It is the truest expression of our self-preservation instinct. Even if, like myself, you have a sharp lack of defined idea of your self-worth, it still lives in there. For the chronically ill, we live there. It’s not that we are brave… it’s that that option has been removed for us. One day, it might be a little harder to get out of the bed – mentally *or* physically – but we push through and get out to do the best we can based on what our bodies and minds will allow us to do.
If you are one of the 10-or-so people who are still reading along, thank you. Feel free to share this blog with anyone who you think might benefit. I am persisting because I want to be helpful. I am persisting because it is helpful to me. And if you are out there fighting a battle that the people close to you (in your social life or whatever metric you care to use) have no frame of reference to truly comprehend… be kind to yourself. You’re doing great. Perhaps, as the Statler Brothers said in their song Flowers On The Wall, you’re “playin solitaire till dawn/ with a deck of 51”. And if you are.. GOOD FOR YOU. At least you’re still playing.
And because it makes me laugh
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