when suffering follows

after two blissful years, where my body was free and my mind rinsed of the cortisol baths it once floated in, it’s back (no pun meant). My body has uncovered a new trauma and is taking me through the journey of chronic pain again, and I am in the dark valley trying to find my way.

I’m taken back to 10 years ago when I initially hurt my back after I had become quite fit. I wrote about it here. It’s incredible to go back and re-read what i wrote then about my experience because my words are still so relevant now, even though my circumstances have changed and I’m no longer the athlete I was then. And this time, there is no reason for why my disc is so badly herniated; it just…is.

I don’t know why suffering comes looking for certain people so often. It’s easy to feel so sorry for myself when there isn’t anything I can do to affect my situation for the better. My injection didn’t work, time hasn’t improved my pain level, if anything, my symptoms have slowly worsened over these last few months. My first waking thought each morning is “will today be my miracle?” And I swing my legs over the side of the bed to put weight on my feet, and so far, only the instant searing pain has answered.

I think about mental strength and the type of fortitude required to endure trials like this and I wonder about the silent and invisible defense mechanisms that get activated. If we apply friction and small doses of erosion on a physical part of the body, you produce a raw and painful spot (like a blister). But over time, if you continue to apply that friction and micro-tearing, you will eventually evolve healing into protection, and a callous forms. How does this process play out in our mental space?

All I want my body to be able to do is be my vessel in life, and allow me the freedom to move without pain. I dare not even let my mind even dream about becoming an athlete again, but simply just to exist as I am absent of the pain.

I am tired, and I do not want to be. I am sad, and I do not want to be. I try to tell myself that it’s very likely I will not be like this for ever, but my mental callous makes it hard to feel that truth.

Some days, the hopeful footnote just won’t come.

I know a brave bird will still fly through fog

but what happens if her wings fail?

Does she land and bask in the hazy wet ring of the sun

or does she find a bare branch to land, to mourn.

Is there sense of direction when the air is heavy,

and does she see this as rest? As fate.

Brave birds are still brave when their wings fail.

Fog is still.

Bravery in stillness.

The suffering of wild things.