I don't know how many times I have written some variant on feeling drained from the pain or feeling the wave of pain drain the energy out of me. I've found myself feeling as if I were a puddle of some painful fluid in the bottom of my chair lately. It seems as though I should have two eyeballs sitting in the pain blob looking up at my bleached white skeleton which would be all that is left. Of course, the skeleton seems to hurt as well.
Sometimes, scientists want to purify something using a method that requires liquid. I think pain would be an excellent chemical for this practice. In fact, I think someone may have already done this to me. They wanted to test me for the presence of courage so they dissolved the (insert technobabble here) and the pain bonded to every part of me. I'm still standing here so I must have some courage but everything else would have gone down the drains if they flowed right. Visit from the in-laws? Let it be clear that I am very happy to have a meal from the trip to the local popular Redneck Steak Place (yee-haw!) sent back home for me with Melissa at the end of the night. It was a lot less pleasing how I all but forced my poor out of state guests to whisper in their corner of the room while I failed to suffer in silence in my three-quarters. My dear mother-in-law described how she will likely wake up all alert early this coming morning and I thought of my fond memories of actually hosting Melissa's mother and sister on the first floor of my home. I would bring my cup of coffee downstairs and have a chat with her because she has trouble staying asleep past her usual start time at home. I miss that!
Melissa and I were going to be world travelers when we aged gracefully. A photographer friend has a photo of herself doing the least glamorous task of spending time in a motor home and managing to look graceful in the process. My first thought after the much needed and appreciated chuckle was jealousy because Melissa and I were supposed to be doing that. (Okay. I wasn't exactly jealous of the specific task but the traveling it implied would have been nice.) Every tiny part of my life is distilled by and then viewed through a prism of pain.
I had the lovely experience of being awakened by pain for the very first time that I can remember. I'd been awakened by hernia troubles and other things but I'll admit to being scared when I was sleeping a little fitfully and the pain from my dream turned out to be real. It hurt a lot and it chased me out of what I thought was a safe refuge. As someone who loves to read, write and watch fiction where action plays a key role, I can tell you that the part where our hero gets chased out of his "safe refuge" in the middle of the night having to leave possibly vital items behind can be the scariest part of these films. I still get keyed up (not scared but my pulse gets going) during the surprise attack scene in "The Dark Crystal."
The safe refuge thing is far less entertaining in real life as if I didn't have enough sleep issues. Pain can sneak up on me while I sleep now. Once I got calmed down after being chased out of bed, I went online. It was time to announce my total and complete failure at this survival thing but the funniest thing happened. It turned out that I was scared and in pain yet I was still quite alive. "Alive" is still one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs. If I remember correctly, Eddie said something about the meaning of that song evolving. It started out as a curse and a complaint about being alive. After that, it turned into a dare against life. Fuck you, life. You've gotten quite a few shots at me but I'm still alive. In Eddie's case, it went on to be a celebration of life.
I was there at the celebration stage and I expect to get back. For the moment, I'm pissed off. I know there are people who suffer much more pain than I do and some of them are cute kids who get put in TV ads. I know there are a lot of people in the same boat with me. There are quite a few people who don't live with significant daily physical pain but I won't envy them until I walk a mile in their shoes. No thanks. My feet hurt enough. Therefore, I have to be satisfied with giving circumstance and pain a quick flip of the bird and move on.
Things could be a lot worse in my life. In fact, things would be pretty ideal without the pain and I don't trust ideal. Even with the pain, I have this big block of life to make the best of and I know that I would not need to kick myself later. I've been very busy when the pain allows and chomping at the bit when it doesn't. Eddie sings it best as I've seen (more or less seen with tall people about) three times. "I'm still alive!" I'm not wasting the time. I fight to sift every molecule of quality out of what goes down the drain.
Now, back to my regularly scheduled moaning.
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