When an old friend stops by

Once more the pain has increased over the last couple of days. I am no stranger to it and I have been here many times before. I have written about welcoming every guest into our home, no matter who shows up. I have written about my challenges with the pain body and I have even mentioned that one of my goals is to write a book on embracing the pain. I remind myself that even the toughest days pass, that nothing lasts forever, while acknowledging the hint of sorrow and depression that slowly creeps in due to chronic, a constant nagging pain.

It’s true, I have been a lot better for a little over a month now. Better compared to how it could be, and still the pain never fully subsides. All it is, is days with less or more struggle to accomplish basic tasks. As I woke this morning, some fingers were extremely swollen, following a mostly sleepless night. After dressing myself and easing into the day, I felt enveloped by sadness. Staring out the window, into space, an empty gaze and simply being tired of this vicious cycle. Sometimes it’s just hard to embrace this feeling and welcome this old friend, isn’t it? Sometimes our wisdom and knowledge goes right out of the window and we just have to work through the emotions of it. Maybe welcoming an old friend means having a cry together. Maybe it means pausing and taking a moment to identify a lack, an injustice we are doing to ourselves. Maybe it is realizing we haven’t taken the best care of ourselves. How has our nutrition been, did we drink enough water, have we allowed stress and worry to creep in, has the balance tipped, have we put ourself last instead of first? For me it’s a combination of all of it and I am learning to remember that pain is an outcry and your body’s way of telling you that something is out of balance. So while it might appear hard to embrace pain when we are hurting so much, perhaps we can see it in a form of warning and lack. From there we can eliminate or adjust what is tipping the balance, and from there we forge and create better days ahead.