Sometimes Life is NOT the Schizz

I am lying in bed.  I'm trying to sleep, but my body has other ideas.  When I lie down, my neck tenses up.  My shoulders tighten, rising up to my ears; a commuter in pain.  My neck feels as if it is enduring the French Revolution.  I am being guillotened over and over again;  a ring of sharp pain.  What is supposed to be a position of relaxation, is a position of torture, of pain.  I struggle to keep my eyes closed.  "Sleep."  I tell myself.  "Breathe, in/out.  Relax."  I lie still.   I become aware of a burning, a pain centered in my knees.  Fire ants on a rampage. They throw a lifeline to the pain in my neck.  It becomes unbearable.  If I were alone and not in bed with my husband, I would be curled up in a fetal position; a knotted mess, rocking back and forth, crying.  In pain.  In tears.  My body burns with pain.  Shoulders tight, onfire.   Forearms singing.  I sit up.

Because I am a mess, I cannot remember what I should be doing.  My stomach growls.  Empty.  I sit on the edge of the bed.  What's next?  "Stand up!" my brain shouts to my body.  I stand.  I am at a loss.  I am standing, at the edge of a world with possibilties, but I cannot think of what comes next.  I am upright; a stanchion against gravity.  I sway.  "Walk!"  says my brain.  "Hungry!'   says my stomach.  "Full!" says my bladder.  "Bathroom" thinks my brain.  I am stiff.  I am the farmer's horse, going to market; hobbledy, hoy.  Hobbledy hoy!  I have reached the bathroom. "What's next?"  we all ask.   Slowly from somewhere, "Pee!"  I sit.  I relieve myself.  Fortunately, movement is programmed in my muscles.  I complete all the necessary hygienic tasks of urinating.  I stand, lost in front of the wash basin.  "Wash your hands."  whispers my brain.   I wash.  I dry.  I stand in front of my towels.  I lean my head forward, against the towel racks trying to plumb my brain for the next step.  "Ah!  Breakfast!" shouts my stomach.  Slowly, I collect the ingredients for an omelet.  I write myself notes:  breakfast, meds, clothes.  Otherwise, I am lost, adrift in an ocean of forgetten intentions.  Circling, always circling.  Moving, but not forward.

I sit.  I eat.  I read.  I breathe.  Thank God there is ONE thing I can do without thinking about it.  I sigh.  No ambition, no knowledge, no thinking.  I just am.  Living, breathing, sitting on the couch.  This is all I can do right now.  All I can be.  I am.  If I am me, it is a grace from God.

I close my eyes.  "Maybe tomorrow will be a better day,"  I think.  The bits and pieces of me are in hiding.  I sigh.  I know that with rest, with energy, I can be myself.  I can do more than just survive.  But for right now, it is all I can do, all I can be.  I just exist.  Me on the couch.  Breathing.  Existing.  Tomorrow WILL be a better day.  Maybe tomorrow, I can LIVE!  But for today, I just survive.  I am alive...but barely.

Namaste.

Kismet

Copyright August 2013