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A Bright Spot In My Grey Fog

Time sometimes makes me feel as if I’m moving at a snail’s pace through a murky grey fog. Since having surgery at the end of February, that’s how I’ve been feeling. For the first weeks afterwards, I told myself it was the general anesthetics working through my body and once that passed my energy level would pick up. When that didn’t happen I told myself that I wasn’t getting enough quality sleep, which rarely ever happens, so I had to cast that variable by the wayside. Even when I got the all clear from my doctor because the pathology report from my surgery was negative for any cancer, there was no movement on my energy meter.

I started to get concerned; because I thought, I might slowly be sliding into depression but missing the true signs. Maybe the low energy I was crediting to anesthesia, fatigue, a pain flare up, or my laptop’s hard drive crashing was really the looming darkness of a mental crash. It wouldn’t be hard to miss for someone in my situation, even with the mental health supports I have in place to cope with my poor health; and especially because my nervous system gets flooded not just by the barrage of constant pain but also an unending amount of pain medications. With these things constantly at play, a shift in mood would be easy to miss.

Then last week, I felt a desperate need to change things, but I knew whatever I did had to fall within the limits of my pain. On Saturday, I decided to do something that I had taken for granted when I was healthy. I booked an appointment with the aesthetician I used to go to because it’s been such a long time – almost four years ago before the start of my illness – since I did anything to pamper myself. The women who own the spa I went to were so happy to see me. They asked why it had been so long since my last visit and I told them what I’ve been living with. Not only were they sympathetic, they were also empathetic because they both faced significant health issues in recent years. They were both extremely encouraging and expressed hopes that I would be better soon.

At the end of my appointment, as I walked to the elevators one of the women called after me. I assumed I forgot something, but I hadn’t. She followed me out to give me one of the tightest warm hugs I’ve had in a long time. I started to cry as a woman I hardly know held me with great affection. She reiterated her positive wishes and prayers that I will become healthy soon. For the rest of the day as I pushed myself to finish the errands I had to do – I’m not sure I could have lasted another week without my laptop – I could feel the fog lifting. A hug from someone I barely know lit up my day and has had lingering positive effect.

I’ve been reflecting on that for the past few days: For anyone reading my writing for the first time, this isn’t about me being starved for affection or human contact. I have wonderful friends and family who do everything they can to support me. This is about the big way small gestures can affect our lives; the way sharing our troubles can bring about such surprising connections and unexpectedly comforting events; and how feeling cared for, even if it’s just for a moment, can fortify us.

I’m glad I made that appointment. Apart from reminding me how important it is to do things to pamper one’s self from time to time, it was a truly bright experience that lifted much of the fog that had cloaked me.

 

Weekend Blooms
Taxi Doodles

 

Creative Pain Distractions

It’s hard being alone with intense pain late at night, as I was last night and the night before. Then again, pain that never stops is hard to cope with at any time of the day. Last night, and other days and nights, when my pain is particularly bad and sleep eludes me, I try to think of things to do – aside from amputating the offending body part(s) – to distract myself. Unfortunately, depending on the pain’s level of intensity, I’m not always successful at turning my thoughts away. However, I do usually end up creating something interesting to look at.

As the pain level rose in my legs and pelvis the night before last, I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to create. I started to place random dots on a clean page in my sketchbook with a black Sharpie pen. Then I connected the dots together with short straight lines and they became triangles, but the sight of a page full of small triangles didn’t feel satisfying. That led me to connecting the triangles at their various points creating a sort of web, which still felt incomplete. I looked at the page for a short while then started drawing lines within each triangle transforming them into prisms. With each line I added, I saw multi-pointed stars appearing on the page that made me wish for an opportunity to experience weightlessness among them on the off-chance I might not feel any pain without the pull of gravity…

Drawing lines didn’t help make my pain go away on recent nights, but it distracted me from thinking of it for a short time as I imagined creating a new galaxy of endless stars.

 

When Someone Shows You Who They Are…

“I don’t trust you,” she said coldly. The same person I recently held in my arms while she cried and told me her troubles said those words to me.

I’m never going to forget being told those words because I have the kind of memory that stores information with great detail and rarely dislodges any of it. My earliest memories were created when I was a toddler and I still see the things, people and places in them as if I interacted with them yesterday – much like I can see this person on the playground of our elementary school. Sometimes I wish my memory didn’t work this way but at other times, now for instance, I’m glad I rarely ever forget. I’m glad because it ensures that I won’t allow myself to be caught in another web of deceit like the one made by a person who chose to abuse my friendship and trust.

As an adult, I’ve been accused many times of being naïve and too trusting of people, especially those I allow into private areas of my life, and with whom I share the most intimate parts of who I am. That characterization may not be too far off, but I prefer to look at it from the perspective of trusting until I’m given a reason not to trust. I approach life that way because it takes too much energy to walk around suspecting that every person one engages with is going to harm you in some way. The never-ending hypervigilance and suspicion would surely make it impossible to enjoy one’s life, and could, quite possibly drain you of your will to live.

Besides, when someone betrays or deliberately hurts you, it’s the unmasking of who they are. Therefore, it has no bearing on your character. Furthermore, when that same person has the audacity to mockingly ask, “What are you going to do about it?” in relation to the action they have taken against you; or “Who do you think you are?” after you call her or him out on their vile behaviour; it’s further evidence that they were never worthy of your friendship. Words and behaviour like this also makes one realize that the air of toughness someone might have projected for years, is just the lack of a conscience and the inability for her or him to form genuine human connections.

In the end, one must decide what bearing such a betrayal is likely to have on any kind of relationship continuing to exist. In my experience, that chance arcs sharply towards zero, because in all likelihood, there may be nothing to salvage. After all, it would be more than naïve to allow any person who treats you so poorly to get that close to you again. And if there’s any doubt about this decision there are always these wise words from Maya Angelou to remember, “When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”

When Someone Shows You Who They Are