Last Saturday we flew into Colorado for a week. It was for business and pleasure. We were going to do some trails in the mountains and I was going to keep to my health goals during the week. It sounded like a perfect plan. I had supported a lower back pain for a few weeks. But I was on the way to full recovery when we embarked on our trip. However, the bed was so soft that overnight my back pain came back with a vengence. It was so bad, that by the time I woke up Sunday morning I could barely move without pain in my lower back. It was so distressing. I was so looking forward to the few days with my husband since we've had a kind of a stressful few weeks. But now I was down with a back pain.
I am not new to pain. I suffer from many chroic pain issues. But this hit me hard. I was inconsolable. I was cried a lot. Just flet so beaten down. This was partly because I was kind of recovering from my neck pain and knee issues. I was able to get into my work out routine and golf and I was losing weight. Overall I felt so much better and then Wham! it hits me. I could not handle it. It made me wonder what on earth is going on with me...yet again. I started wondering when I will ever see the light of day for more than a few days or weeks. My health issues seem to always raise its head up and want to pin me down and keep me pinned down.
So on Sunday as we were touring Rocky Mountain Park, with me being very miserable, I started thinking. This was partly to wrap my head around what's going on and also to get out of the miserable mind state I was in. At some point on our way back the following thought came to my mind. I must say it did help me clam myself.
What I realized was that even when my body was giving up and falling apart, my mind continued to stay resilient and want to do things that my body was not able to do. My unhappiness was a direct cause of me wanting to do all these things and now because of my back pain, not being able to. I work with hospice patients. I see them on a weekly basis unble to do the things they once had done. Some fight and are unhappy and the others seem to have come to a resolve. I felt like one of my patients. I was the one disable and unhappy cause I could no longer do the things I wanted to do. I had these expectations of my body. Now I could not live up to it. So I was unhappy. Isn't that amazing!
I started being aware how much of a drive I had in myself to want to do things. It was excruciating. I wanted to hike, I wanted clime and be free like I usually am when I go on trips. But my body could not handle it. It was giving me pain. But for some reason I could not come to terms with it. I felt that I was young and these are things people like me would do without batting an eye lid and here I am being pathetic. It was a hard reality to swallow.
I realized how much I needed to change in my expectaions of myself alone. From my body. It's a hard thing to come to terms to because its your body for cyring out loud. But yet there is something uncontrollable about it. You cannot make your body behave and do things the way you want all of the time. Sometimes, you need to allow it to be, rest and recover. That might include doing less, wanting to do less or whatever maybe. The only expectations are those that I have put on myself. I mean I began to think of people who had cancer who were young, who were disabled and young, dead and young. So considering all that I was not having a bad experience. But for me it felt as if I was dying. I felt such a sense of loss.
But I realized that I did not need to. There is no guarantee that we will be healthy, strong and capable, that our senses and limbs will be intact or for that matter I would live tomorrow but yet there is an expectation somewhere in my mind. I realized that I needed to clam down much more, let go much more and expect much less. It was a good eye opener. I also realised that if I continued on the same path how hard it would be for me to die. I will always have some sort of unfinished business. So if I have to die tomorrow what am I going to do. Be sad, angry, miserable and mess up my last moments on this earth?
These were wonderful points for me to contemplate on. I think just this expericence alone brought to my mind how fragile our lives are. How fragile our bodies are. That at somepoint I needed to clam down so I didn't add to an already worse situation. The hard part was it was internal. Where could I go? Where could I hide? Nowhere. I had to be with myself no matter how unpleasant the experience was..not matter how hard the situation was...I was there. I could not excape myself. That's hard. When things are unplesant and external to you, you at least have the choice to run away, but when it's you, there is no place to run to. I realized how much more kindness and compassion I had to develop just deal with myself.
I feel much better now. But I have calmed down....partly because I am not constantly in pain. But also I learnt a lesson. That I needed to expect less of myself and be kind as my body gives up from time to time. I must learn to remind myself that there will be that time, when my body gives up completely and that I will have no choice at that time. I don't want to fight when that time comes. I don't want to be angry or sad. I don't want to feel that there is much to be done and if only I could live....I don't want that struggle. I want to be in a place where I can let my body die because that's how it's going to be. Just because...I want to be able to let it go just becasue it's time to do so.
