so, this pain thing is an interesting factor in my life right now. to wake up, everyday, early, a pain growing in your belly, beneath your ribs, in your left lower back, to feel it drag you up from a sleep that is laden with familiar imagery that never happened, faces that you've not seen in ages except on social media as if it were a part of your everyday life, dredging up sadness and misery along with the aloneness like meat through flour, ready for the grease to crisp it for consumption...to be awake for hours, just trying to find a spot where the pressure and pain won't be as intense, and knowing that nothing you take, no Tylenol, no ibuprofin, no prednisone or hydroxycodone or gout meds or neuropathy medicine are going to do you any good...to cry out, to yell, close to a scream, mostly of frustration but also of pain, to finally find the spot, laying on your back which is your worst sleep position, where it doesn't hurt, and to drift off into another dream of exactly the same emotive quality...to wake up, finally, sit on the edge of the bed, weary, feeling crazy, feeling lost, trying to salvage a prayer, scratching through the surface noise for your gratitude...just to start the day, to do the things you know you need to do...and to have this as the new ritual, for the past week and a half, almost 10 days straight, with little variation...unless its to drug myself with cold medicine, which would constitute abuse and i'm not going there...that is what i would consider hell, if i believed in such a thing other than the human condition on the entire planet Earth right about now.
now, take that whole diatribe, and give it a day like today. today, my doctor's office called to reiterate what i told them a week ago, what i told them happened in the ER on friday, called me to schedule a useless visit...but i figured, maybe its time to give in, to just get a pain medicine prescription, maybe something that works at night, and then i can at least sleep, until the script runs out. because i am convinced this is all a neuropathic nightmare, that this is just one continuous attack that is only going to get worse as i get older...but i'm willing to fight. that's what i was taught, that's what i'm made of. so i decide to go. have a 2:15 appointment in the afternoon. had thought about going to the noon meeting, just to get out of the house, to aid the struggle of aloneness against the insidious mind-assassin, Loneliness. but it takes planning now. planning around pain. planning around finances. the trip to Warren to the doctor alone consumes more gas than i really have to burn. planning around things to do here, which are arranged but have to be adhered to. and then...a moment. a glitch in the programming, self-written, of course- and the whole thing goes to a new level of Dante's inferno, a deeper floor in the sub-basement shopping center of hell.
in point: i take my shower and i shave my head and face. important. i lotion my feet, utmost importance, and i lotion up completely. i've put in an application and i have written a bit in To December. i've had my breakfast...two good slices of toasted pumpernickel bread, two fried eggs. after i leave the shower, i bring the trash from the bathroom, dump it into the kitchen waste basket and prepare to tie it up. tomorrow is trash day. i look out the window. the world is white, snow has fallen and adhered. so now the plan takes shape. grab the broom, the trash from the back porch and the bag just taken from the kitchen. go out the front. UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR. take the trash to the can. along the way, use the broom to clean off the car. LOCK THE CAR DOOR. after, of course, the car is started and warming up. then go to the back, get the trash can, bring it to the front, stopping to throw the trash brought from the house into it, put it in front. then, after the car warms sufficiently, go to the meeting, go to the doctor, hit a store on the way home. grab some lunch. it's streamlining, so that everything can be taken care of without backtracking, because that's when i forget things. that is a joke. it's funny in retrospect. THAT's when i forget things.
it ran correctly until i cleaned off half the car, opened the door, started the car, looked at my black travel bag that has my spare set of car keys in it sitting on the passenger floor, thought at least i don't have to bring my bag out of the house when i go... closed the car door...and heard the echo of the last sentence in my head. car locked. keys in car. spare keys in bag. BAG IN CAR.
i didn't lose it. i didn't panic. i asked for a miracle, but i didn't get one. not an obvious one. i finished cleaning off the car. i got the trash can. i'd thrown the two bags and a pop case into the front yard, and i retrieved them and put them in the can, wheeled it to the front and left it at the edge of the yard. i tried some useless combinations on the keypad. i have opened it with the combination before, which is in the trunk and unopenable without the keyfob. i went back in the house. thank Goodness i left the door open, because i probably would have locked myself out of the house as well...without my phone. i called AAA. mind you, this is where the fun starts, as Bruce Willis used to sing for Seagram's wine coolers.
i did all this right after 11am, needing to get to a 12noon meeting. i called AAA about 11:30, realizing it was not going to be a meeting day now. the young man who answered the phone kept getting my information wrong, then he said he'd put a rush on it since my car was running, but it would usually be a window of 2 hours, or til 1:30. he said someone would call when they were en route. i waited an hour, then i called back, said that i was told there'd be a rush on the situation. they said that was notated, but because they also gave a block of time til 1:30, they could do nothing until the 2 hour window had passed. i waited an hour. 1:30. i called back. they apologized quite a bit, said they would contact the tow company and have them call with an ETA. waited til 2:30. called back. again, profuse apologies. asked me to hold, and while i was on hold, a dispatcher called, said that the tow company should have been there, but didn't know my keys were locked in a RUNNING car. so she said someone would be to me asap. clicked back over, thanked the AAA person. waited. another half hour. finally, guy called, said 5 minutes. came, said AAA never contacted him until 15 minutes ago, said he'd been all in this area, took 3 minutes to open my car door. i thanked him. wished him a happy holiday. i was fuming. i had burned a quarter tank of gas. i could have been in Columbus, sitting at a meal someone had cooked for me in the time it took them to get someone to me. and the truth is, it was my fault. i knew my bag was in the car, i'd just forgotten and then overlooked it. i'm getting old. my health is not getting much better. but i'm going to fight. not the fight of my father, where i lose my grasp on reality. the fight of doing different things, better things for me, so that if there is any chance of a better quality of life before the end of the run, i'm going to get to it.
but i fear it's closer than i think. pain that is spreading, untouched by medications. dreams as if my mind is trying to process all the information it can in the time left. a sadness that has returned, a poignancy to the aloneness. i don't know. i don't presume to know God's will. i do know this...
i got up, i ate, i prayed. i will go to the doctor. i will go to my meeting. i will see my parents. these are things should i awaken again. i will dance. i will work on this story. i will work on my songs. i will search for the gratitude that is always there, even if sometimes i am resistant to seeing it. and i will thank Jehovah for a furnace that warms my flesh and a bed that supports my broken sleep. i've been without both in this lifetime, at the same time.
regardless of what you ask for, you get what you get, and you have to make the most of it, every time you can.
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