Life is a challenge
Jan. 24th, 2013 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichI wrote that title because I've been thinking about the turn my health has taken and trying to dwell a bit on what purpose that change has. I firmly believe that we live to learn, to experience, and to better ourselves by our experiences.
Last night I spent awake and in the wee hours my health care provider's automated service sent me a message with the diagnosis of my recent X-rays. They left the other one, from the MRI, for my neurosurgeon to tell me at the end of next month. So obviously, since it will be a month before I get any kind of word or a chance to address what is happening to me, part of what I need to perfect in my life is the ability to let go of anxiety caused by the time between doctors’ visits, right? I joke, but it does seem as though it is a skill, or a mindset, that I must be forced to acquire.
I was awake when Bossman left for work. I’d tried sleeping but severe leg cramps forced me out of bed. Just another side effect of the Gleevec. I am grateful that my cramping is rather isolated – other patients have reported terrible muscle cramps in unlikely places, such as a muscle in the cheek, or along the side of the neck, at inopportune moments. Mine seem to be pretty much dedicated to legs or the back of the neck and mostly at the end of my waking hours. I expect that if I do discipline myself to better relaxation techniques I could cut down on those as they are both areas affected by daily stress. This morning, as I rarely do, I resorted to medication to reduce the cramping and the pain, and finally got to sleep sometime around 9 or 10 in the morning. I woke up at 8:30 at night... the longer sleeping periods are one reason I avoid taking the drugs. They aren’t the kind that should knock a person out so I have no good reason why they affect me that way but I can count on 10-12 hours of sleep once they start working on the cramps and that means I can kiss away any errands or visits I'd like to achieve during normal hours.
Waking up was fine until I ate something... nausea followed and left me drumming my fingers next to my food log as I tried to figure out how many calories & carbs to deduct afterwards. (I really don’t understand how women could induce themselves into bulimia. I will take any other solution to a problem over throwing up. If I were somehow required to live like that I would most likely just fast and not eat at all.)
Anyway.
I’ve been thinking about the video I watched of the man who was overweight and walking with canes or stuck in a wheelchair after he was injured in the military, who through yoga has so improved his health that he is now able to run and move freely. A while ago a friend reposted the video on his Facebook feed with the comment, “What’s your excuse?” as his caption and it hit me pretty hard. His caption wasn’t aimed specifically at me, but its effect on me was rough. I didn’t feel inspired or encouraged to be more determined to overcome my health issues and make them disappear somehow... I felt judged by my friend. Belittled. Humiliated. Useless and viewed as self-indulgent. And then angry.
I’m sure that was not the response he was hoping to invoke. I’m sure he was trying to use a little tough love on some of his friends mired by challenges and to inspire them to greater efforts. And I resented it.
But his gesture stayed with me, and through days like today – not common days, certainly, but no longer unusual ones – I thought about that. And why it was that I was resentful or angry about the question he posted. Mixed in with that was the awareness of the philosophy (if you will) held by another friend who believes that one’s physical self is a manifestation of one’s soul, so an unhealthy body reflects an unhealthy soul, and who also believes that one ‘calls in’ everything that happens to oneself; so accidents, injuries, and illnesses are things one chooses to experience. In her mind, no one is ever a victim – we *choose* to have these things in our lives. Yeah – she and I don’t talk about her beliefs. Or rather, she does and I refrain from telling her my own opinion. Her beliefs give her comfort and I'm grateful for that (she's been through a lot) and it’s not for me to try take that away from her. But I think that belief system sucks and I deeply, deeply resent the implication and the judgement that I would choose to put myself or my friends and loved ones through the stress, the anger, the pain and all the other negative things that are brought on by my ill-health. Much less that anyone else would just somehow decide to do that to their loved ones, or to 'call in' a rape, a beating, abuse, being born handicapped...whatever.
Except that I DO believe that things happen to us for a reason. And that before birth we may have agreed to be placed in the situations that will challenge our growth. My belief is this life on earth is the method by which we learn, and grow, and become better people for it, that it is a part of our evolution of soul towards Godhood, if you won’t faint when I call it that. That we chose to be born here, in this time and in these bodies, in this Universe governed by its physical rules, so we could gain experience and empathy, wisdom and knowledge. One does not understand the depth of love experienced by parenthood until one is a parent. Or the odd feeling of entrapment, either, when it hits home that the heavy responsibility for another's life will be inescapable for two decades or perhaps even longer. You have to live that. Absorb that. And the same holds true for the small (how to deal with traffic frustration) to the large (how to witness tragedy and be helpless to ease it)... we learn through experience. We add another layer of understanding and empathy to our souls.
So this degeneration of my body – I have to believe that it holds something for me to learn, as it has for millions of people living their lives before and with me. It is not unusual. It is, in fact, a standard part of the human lifespan. And that is what is holding my thoughts right now. What can I learn, what can I perfect, through the structure of ill health? Ideas have been floating in and out but I haven’t really settled on anything that calls to me as the – goal, I guess – in this particular game.
I don't know why I needed to post this. Perhaps I just needed to write about it and see if the process would help me gain some clarity.
Last night I spent awake and in the wee hours my health care provider's automated service sent me a message with the diagnosis of my recent X-rays. They left the other one, from the MRI, for my neurosurgeon to tell me at the end of next month. So obviously, since it will be a month before I get any kind of word or a chance to address what is happening to me, part of what I need to perfect in my life is the ability to let go of anxiety caused by the time between doctors’ visits, right? I joke, but it does seem as though it is a skill, or a mindset, that I must be forced to acquire.
I was awake when Bossman left for work. I’d tried sleeping but severe leg cramps forced me out of bed. Just another side effect of the Gleevec. I am grateful that my cramping is rather isolated – other patients have reported terrible muscle cramps in unlikely places, such as a muscle in the cheek, or along the side of the neck, at inopportune moments. Mine seem to be pretty much dedicated to legs or the back of the neck and mostly at the end of my waking hours. I expect that if I do discipline myself to better relaxation techniques I could cut down on those as they are both areas affected by daily stress. This morning, as I rarely do, I resorted to medication to reduce the cramping and the pain, and finally got to sleep sometime around 9 or 10 in the morning. I woke up at 8:30 at night... the longer sleeping periods are one reason I avoid taking the drugs. They aren’t the kind that should knock a person out so I have no good reason why they affect me that way but I can count on 10-12 hours of sleep once they start working on the cramps and that means I can kiss away any errands or visits I'd like to achieve during normal hours.
Waking up was fine until I ate something... nausea followed and left me drumming my fingers next to my food log as I tried to figure out how many calories & carbs to deduct afterwards. (I really don’t understand how women could induce themselves into bulimia. I will take any other solution to a problem over throwing up. If I were somehow required to live like that I would most likely just fast and not eat at all.)
Anyway.
I’ve been thinking about the video I watched of the man who was overweight and walking with canes or stuck in a wheelchair after he was injured in the military, who through yoga has so improved his health that he is now able to run and move freely. A while ago a friend reposted the video on his Facebook feed with the comment, “What’s your excuse?” as his caption and it hit me pretty hard. His caption wasn’t aimed specifically at me, but its effect on me was rough. I didn’t feel inspired or encouraged to be more determined to overcome my health issues and make them disappear somehow... I felt judged by my friend. Belittled. Humiliated. Useless and viewed as self-indulgent. And then angry.
I’m sure that was not the response he was hoping to invoke. I’m sure he was trying to use a little tough love on some of his friends mired by challenges and to inspire them to greater efforts. And I resented it.
But his gesture stayed with me, and through days like today – not common days, certainly, but no longer unusual ones – I thought about that. And why it was that I was resentful or angry about the question he posted. Mixed in with that was the awareness of the philosophy (if you will) held by another friend who believes that one’s physical self is a manifestation of one’s soul, so an unhealthy body reflects an unhealthy soul, and who also believes that one ‘calls in’ everything that happens to oneself; so accidents, injuries, and illnesses are things one chooses to experience. In her mind, no one is ever a victim – we *choose* to have these things in our lives. Yeah – she and I don’t talk about her beliefs. Or rather, she does and I refrain from telling her my own opinion. Her beliefs give her comfort and I'm grateful for that (she's been through a lot) and it’s not for me to try take that away from her. But I think that belief system sucks and I deeply, deeply resent the implication and the judgement that I would choose to put myself or my friends and loved ones through the stress, the anger, the pain and all the other negative things that are brought on by my ill-health. Much less that anyone else would just somehow decide to do that to their loved ones, or to 'call in' a rape, a beating, abuse, being born handicapped...whatever.
Except that I DO believe that things happen to us for a reason. And that before birth we may have agreed to be placed in the situations that will challenge our growth. My belief is this life on earth is the method by which we learn, and grow, and become better people for it, that it is a part of our evolution of soul towards Godhood, if you won’t faint when I call it that. That we chose to be born here, in this time and in these bodies, in this Universe governed by its physical rules, so we could gain experience and empathy, wisdom and knowledge. One does not understand the depth of love experienced by parenthood until one is a parent. Or the odd feeling of entrapment, either, when it hits home that the heavy responsibility for another's life will be inescapable for two decades or perhaps even longer. You have to live that. Absorb that. And the same holds true for the small (how to deal with traffic frustration) to the large (how to witness tragedy and be helpless to ease it)... we learn through experience. We add another layer of understanding and empathy to our souls.
So this degeneration of my body – I have to believe that it holds something for me to learn, as it has for millions of people living their lives before and with me. It is not unusual. It is, in fact, a standard part of the human lifespan. And that is what is holding my thoughts right now. What can I learn, what can I perfect, through the structure of ill health? Ideas have been floating in and out but I haven’t really settled on anything that calls to me as the – goal, I guess – in this particular game.
I don't know why I needed to post this. Perhaps I just needed to write about it and see if the process would help me gain some clarity.
