Or the return of the Emo Blog
In Christianity, there is one unforgivable sin, and that is suicide. In the ancient land shared by many gods, even the one that was manipulated into the Christian god, two unforgivable sins call for the curse of the gods, and those are to deny a stranger hospitality and hubris. The story of Adam & Eve is the story of eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge and becoming permanently hubristic. I sometimes wonder if I have committed one of these sins and I find myself cursed by one or many gods.
This may sound dramatic, since from the outside you might think I live a semi-charmed life. Not rich and powerful, but I can befriend most people; I’m not ugly; I’m personable, and I can even sound smart. But what you can’t see is the constant chronic pain that permeates my aging body. I have been cursed with cancer, and now I have been cursed with the ongoing struggles of having it, along with pain that may or may not have been caused by its treatment, the infusion of poison that kills the cancer, but not enough to kill the body.
I have written before that either the curse is cancer, or something else is hiding under the cancer, or the timing of getting cancer and after recovering, of just being old. I have just done a series of tests to see if it is everything from cancer to arthritis to any number of other diseases, illnesses, or disorders. I have yet to be diagnosed. Then it begs the fourth question: is it all in my head?
About two months ago, about the time I moved, I started having so much pain that it’s affecting my sleep. I have found myself lying throughout the night in pain, but too tired to get up and do anything other than go to the bathroom and eat some Tylenol and ibuprofen. I have become grumpier and snappier with people, both close friends and strangers. Even with all the work I do to try and be a creator of love and compassion, I find myself reacting angrily to the smallest inconveniences. Pain has made it hard to like people.
Pride and duty will always make me do what I say I will do, show up where I am supposed to, and try to hide the pain behind humor, but lately it’s gotten harder to keep doing it. Just sitting in my car hurts; sitting in a meeting hurts. Standing hurts. I often struggle with empathy because what I am hearing is behind a curtain of pain. Sometimes I can’t sympathize when I am battling with my own mortality. I’m not afraid of dying; I am just afraid of the pain, but the pain is already here, so I am wondering what will cease the pain.
I am basically writing this as a blanket check-in that while there are mostly good things in my life- a great home, great friends and family, some financial security- I have a lot of internal physical pain going on. There is only so much physical pain I can take before it starts to eat into my mental and spiritual health.
I have an MRI that is scheduled in December to look at some possible things, but I am hitting the end of the tests I can take. I eat pretty well; I have been trying to exercise, I am going to therapy, I am going to meetings, I am going out and socializing, and I am trying not to look at the world with hate and nihilism.
I always remember that I need to be hospitable to strangers and never to think that I am a god, even if we created the gods in our likeness.