There are several warring factions in my head. One is made of self-pity and sadness. It says, “why is this happening to me?” It wants distraction and escape. It wants to curl up and shut down and close off and wait for it all to go away. Another is pissed off. Defiant. It shakes an angry fist and yells, “Bring it! All you got! Fucking Bring IT!” One is logical. It wants to be patient and wait to see how serious this is. It wants to reserve judgment until the problem is clear. It wants to plan a course of action based on rational observation.

These are the three main alternating modes of thought right now. I like the rational one. But focusing on the rational aspect of the problem makes it too easy to ignore the more emotional responses that are being evoked. And I don’t want to ignore how things makes me feel anymore. “I don’t do drama.” Maybe I should. Because the thing is I “do drama” whether I think I do or not. It’s just that without thinking about going through the drama I end up “doing” the wrong bits of it. For example: Last time I thought the sadness part was pathetic, so I ignored it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single part of me that likes to be ignored, so eventually, that mode; that method of coping was utilized in a way I would not have chosen had I faced it and made a conscious decision about it. In other words, this time I intend to allow myself a certain attention to sadness and self pity. I will face it openly. I will not, however, curl up and shut down and wait for it to go away. The anger will help to keep me motivated, but I won’t let it make me reckless. Rationality will balance these things and will not be an excuse to ignore them.

I did a Tarot reading today. The gist of it was this: I have accomplished something major. I have completed an evolution of sorts. I have come to a much greater understanding of myself and my situation by going through a period of ignorance and doubt. I now have a great challenge ahead of me, but I face it well prepared. I am no longer inhibited by fear of the unknown, but rather driven by confidence and an eagerness to continue to grow.

I have finished a book during my two day long pity-party. It was about a man who is so profoundly addicted to several different substances that his odds for long-term recovery and survival are very meek. Throughout the book he continually rejects the twelve steps of AA and refuses to acknowledge and turn himself over to a higher power because he doesn’t believe in a higher power. His defiance is based on a refusal to defuse responsibility for what he has done. He doesn’t want to blame anything or anyone. He wants to take it all on himself. He works through his addiction by accepting responsibility for his actions and acknowledging that his decision to drink and use drugs, or not to, is just that. His decision. An extremely difficult decision, yes, but still, his decision to make.

There is remarkable power in the act of making a decision.

When I woke up this morning it was snowing. Small white delicate flakes twirling, falling, dancing on the breeze. Whitewash. The world is making itself a new canvas. Awaiting the next strokes of color. The world is making itself a new playground.

I hurt my other knee last night playing indoor soccer. There was no pop this time. There was no failure of function. Just pain. Persistent, sharp, shooting pain. This time was different. This time I was angry. This time I finished the game. This time I woke up this morning and let the pain shoot through more than my knee. The snow is dancing and making a playground and making fun. Making fun of me. Mocking me. Teasing me. I called in sick. I made coffee and grabbed the ice pack out of the freezer. I know that if lightning is going to strike twice it’s because there’s something that it really wants to hit. So bring it. I’m listening this time.

I set myself up on the couch this morning. Books, remotes, phones, food, and a bottle of the medication I was given after my last knee injury. I remember laying around on the couch last time. I remember not being able to feel a thing. I remember not caring what was going on around me. I flipped through the book, I flipped through the channels, I left the bottle unopened. I want to feel it this time. I want to know where I am and what I’m feeling. Right now I’m feeling angry. I’m confused. I’m feeling smacked down. Swatted clean out of the air. Like all the good I’ve been feeling lately, all the confidence, the happiness the renewed sense of self… it was all a tease. I was reaping rewards I hadn’t earned. I had taken short cuts through the last obstacle course. I’ve been caught, stripped of my blue ribbon, and made to run the course again. No cheating this time.

some story for you...

The other day was so clear. So clear I could see individual trees on mountains miles away. I stared, unbelieving. I stared. I willed that stare to draw me closer to the mountain. I willed it to make me be as close to it as I felt. A truck roared by. I blinked. I stepped back. The landscape sprawled out before me: grass and dirt and rocks and road. Miles and miles between here and there and I can see a tree. One tree. I can see the wind blowing it. I focus and I’m drawn closer. I blink and I am back.

And the feeling comes. It’s not so much a thought or an idea. It’s a feeling. I could be anywhere, but I’m here. I could be anyone, but I’m not. And I see so clearly. I feel at once the closeness and the distance of the man who drives by me in his Volkswagen. I can see the strands of hair that fall from their intended place behind his ear. I see the small whiskers; the evidence of Sunday morning laziness. He is so far away. He will pass without seeing me. He will not know how close he came to me.

I look back at the mountain and back at the tree that won’t know how close it seems to me. A tap on my window makes me blink and turn and smile and a voice asks, “Good book?”, and I look down at the book lying open in my lap, long neglected. “Yeah, I guess”.
We get on our bikes and we ride them west and the mountains get bigger and the trees get closer and they seem farther away because I’m on a bike and I’m peddling and I’m watching the grass in a yellow green blur past my wheels and the breeze is cool and the sun is warm, and these are the things that are close and the mountains and the trees are far away. We speak loud because the wind keeps trying to steel our words and I could be anywhere, but I’m not. I am here and this is close and I don’t let the wind steel our words.