These last four and a half years has been incredible and wondrous, and at the same time fraught with frustration and reflection. When someone loses their good health it is not always apparent. The thing is though, when someone tells you repeatedly over that time that they are not well, but ill, there is a certain expectancy that people will understand that part… Not so much.
I have been going through quite a bit, a bad small intestine that brought with it a weight loss and muscle loss that I have yet to recover from. That in turn caused a sinus issue, and exacerbated my already broken back. That back causes neuropathy and horrible sciatic pain and is in constant need of correction and stretching. A number of cases of pneumonia, COPD and emphysema from my smoking, a genetic clotting disorder and a blood that wants to poison me at times. Now coronary artery disease and the probable need for a stent has got me spinning again. Carrying nitro around in case you need it at 51 is not at all where I expected to be or want to continue.
To top off all of that, I am still in recovery, I have lost over a quarter of my weight and a third of my muscle mass. I am weak and getting weaker and the hopelessness that left me when I got sober seems to be knocking at my door everyday. I am in school trying to better myself, but there is no money for going any farther than a few cheap classes meant to build you up for college. My wife works at a decent job, but every time I get going on a position it is a short time before I have something come up and I am unable to continue the work.
I wish it was as simple as getting a job and bucking up, I have tried that a number of times only to see the pattern repeat. People see me and think I must be fine, and probably attack my character or think I am lazy. Believe me, after all this time, I wish it was just about getting a job and hunkering down. Yet, as the doctor has said, I have been sick so long, I don’t know what it is really like to be better. So I have to heal, and in that be seen as a lazy, or sloth like as my worlds come crumbling down, and I am captive to watch it fall apart. It is unfathomably frustrating, people tell you about job positions, or ways out that take little thought as to your situation. This is not a repair job, this is a entire rebuild from the inside out, so all of the old standard thoughts and repair manuals are out the door. I am not a sloth or an idiot, and I take no pleasure in watching my worlds on all fronts come to a screeching end.
So there it is, finding worth through the worthlessness. Trying to find a purpose when you are captive and afraid and uniquely challenged. When you do not make a living and the living you have is just as small as a child’s. They too cannot take care of themselves, do not make a living wage or any wage at all, their self worth though is not based on that end, but their other gifts. I am screaming at the inner self that feels close to death, it is not a little one as some have called it. It is large and whole and weary of this cognizant tug of war, it desires rest and peace, and requires it too. I am just a partial human being, at the time more parasitic than anything else and those burdens are having trouble finding parts of my psyche to give. I fear too soon it will just close up shop.
Yes, this is here as a rant and a whine, and examination for some other day. Sometimes you just have to get it out. To save your soul.