Meanderings at 3 am ….
Today I am hopeful that I get answers to the questions of this ailing body. I have tried many things to fix what was broken, and yet I have felt that nothing I have done has had any lasting effect. I do truly believe that everything I have undertaken has been of some help, and yet I am here at this point where I have had to seek answers from lab tests and a forensic detective. In the huge hope that a pattern can emerge and a road map of healing can commence.
I have a mental picture of me at a crossroads and I took one path which led to many adventures on the quest for better health. And now I have come full circle and I am on a bridge and the bridge is very high and overlooks a luscious forest of beautiful trees, with a waterfall just glimpsed on the horizon. The landscape represents my hope for answers and a better journey forwards, and the possibility of brighter days and a better feeling body.
I feel that I am at a new place and that the answers will be good answers. Yes, I have to take a deep breath and hear about all the things that have gone wrong, and pick myself up from the feeling of failure. I have measured many things in my life by the scales of success and failure, the good and the bad. And the ‘trying to fix this body’ has been measured by me as a failure. And yet, what is the basis of that assessment? The fact that I have not alleviated these symptoms and a feeling of being in a worse place than at the start of all this. How can I definitively know that the things I have done, haven’t been helpful? And maybe they have done some level of healing. And yes I say ‘but I still have these symptoms’ and yet I have learnt much and have applied my learning wisely.
Perhaps all that I have done has kept me alive and has offered some solace to an ailing environment. Yes, maybe I have been patching holes, and yet perhaps that has been my saving grace in these very difficult years.
I asked my son today if he could remember a time before this mother of his was sick. And in his honesty (of which he is always honest) he said ‘no’. I said that I used to be this amazing woman who went back to uni at 39 and achieved a first class honours degree. I asked him what he remembered of that time, and he said with much humour ‘I remember the chips at your graduation because they were the worse chips I have ever tasted!’. And we laughed at that one and it made me feel better.
I used to be this person who forged ahead and achieved many things. I remember 10 years of attempting to pass my GCSE maths, and feeling so proud when I finally passed an equivalent Level 3 grade. I remember my best friend saying ‘you are the most driven person I have ever met!’. I used to laugh and think ‘mm you haven’t seen the rest of my family my love!’. I come from a family of hard grafters and I saw that as ‘just the way it goes’. And so I pushed myself ever onwards and never gave up. And then we come full circle and I am back on this bridge, looking at the beautiful forest and wishing I was there.
This ailing body has taught me much, even if the teaching has not been easy to hear or accept. I have learnt that the driven part of me, had a price, and that price was the body’s undoing. I pushed hard for so long, endured immense stress and didn’t listen to the signs. And the body said ‘no more’ and collapsed in a heap.
I have had to build myself anew. Learning patience when I have felt impatience. acceptance when I didn’t want to accept, and compassion when I was wanting to rage and throw things. Time and time again I’ve had to literally sit with this pain, the physical pain of the body and the emotional pain of the mind. To sit with the fear that this wouldn’t get better anytime soon, and with a deep feeling of shame every time the spewing stomach led to the squelching humiliation of having to rush home or rush to find a toilet.
Today I am hopeful that I get the answers I seek and a road map to follow which leads to better health. To a time when I can freely live, to be able to go out on adventures and just be in the moment. I have learnt much through this period of my life and I hope that all the tools I have learnt will be helpful in this new chapter of bringing wellness back to this body and mind.
Fingers crossed. x