Friday, October 21, 2011

BEING NOT DOING

I am feeling good. I have been swimming three times this week and the last two did not hurt! I have figured out that I need to take my drugs two hours before I swim. Once I figured that out, it was matter of knowing how much morphine to add to the other three painkillers and nerve blocks I use as my 'baseline'-1000mg Paracetamol, 100mg Tramadol, 400mg Gabapentin. 20mg of Morphine lessens the pain enough for me to swim thru it and it does stop. 40mg keeps it away completely but I am happier on just the 20mg as this does make it so I can swim without too much pain and I'd rathe leave the larger doses for down the road as my condition progresses.

I was thrilled to be up at 6.30am as I always used to be. I am really hoping this is the beginning of me getting back to my routine and proper pain control. I am sleeping well though it has not been easy to get up. This morning it wasn't.

I have again been feel in g useless recently. Thinking about my life and what I have done with it. It has all been spent sporting myself out from my poor start. I have been successful at that. Even now, I feel good about being able meet to my challenges. I feel good about myself when I find my way through the challenges. Like the daily battle I have with my body. No that doesn't sound right. It isn't a battle, more a challenge. I feel really good about sorting the right drug cocktail to enable to continue swimming. I went form swimming one mile a day to barely being able to swim 20 laps twice a week. This week I did 2 half miles and one full mile. Swimming is the only exercise I can do. Initially it was the only exercise I could do which didn't hurt. Those days have gone. Nothing I do is pain fee. I am not pain free. So there we are.

The thrill I get though from overcoming is good. Learning how to live with this is a constant challenge and quite an exciting one. I know what I want to do -knit, show the dogs, dye yarn. For as long as possible.

The point to all this is that it is all self-centred. The challenges are all personal. I don't' know if I am making sense here. At 52 I look back over my life and it is has just been about surviving. De-programming so I had a chance at a good life. I wonder what on earth my life means when it has all been about me. Don't misunderstand. I am not feeling sorry for myself. I am happy. I feel very fortunate to be here and to have the life I have. I am so very very lucky. Yet, I think there ought to be more. I don't mean more material things. I don't really know what I mean. I have been given so much by others in my life. By John, my ex-therapist now friend, my best friend Dawn, and various people, some strangers, throughout my life. I have been given love and guidance and new ideas. Given the strength to carry on, to face my demons, to overcome them. To love myself and accept myself.

So you see I have been given so much and it seems my life has been about that and I wonder I have given back. Maybe all of these thoughts are just my ego. Maybe I think I ought to do something concrete, be somebody. This is true. Yet as I write I think that I just need to accept that I may never know what I do. What mark I have left on the world and will leave behind me when I die. I hunk maybe I have been thinking I need to do something obvious-like John is very successful in his field, world renowned for his writing and lectures and knowledge. He will not be forgotten. He is in the history books and will always be.

The more I write, the more I realise that I have fallen for this ego driven idea that I must DO something. Yet I know deep down that all I need to do is to BE. Just be. I don't know what effect that has and maybe that is the lesson I need to learn. Just get on with being me and stop worrying about it.

3 comments:

Iris said...

As you well know, there are many ways people "do something" with their lives. As you also well know, many people, myself included, have found your willingness to discuss your issues to be extremely helpful. When you start thinking this way, think about those in the world who have "done something" with their lives and mucked up the world in the process.

Georgina said...

We will none of us be remembered in the long run - who painted those caves? When I feel small and insignificant I look at a beautiful swathe of grass and try to decide which of all those blades is the least, and which the most, important. To live is enough.

=Tamar said...

Some esoteric schools believe that any given life may have a resonance for those to follow. By freeing yourself from your unhappy background and making a better life for yourself, you provide a model for others, even for those who never read your blog or know intellectually that you exist. The vibrational pattern will be there for others to emulate, even as a string on an instrument can resonate to another string without being plucked itself. At the very least you have prevented yourself from passing on the pain, and that is a good thing.