Sir Pain

I feel like a cat. An angry cat looking for its prey. In my case, it’s Pain I’m after. I’m stalking it trying to figure out how to end its life. Silly pain. Angry pain. Mean pain. I want it to end but I don’t know how to kill it. So, I stalk it.  Hunting. 

“You can be mean to me. You can punish me. But, I will not stop at my pledge to have victory over you, Sir Pain.”

* * *

I am almost always conscious of being in pain.  When I was younger, it was mental pain.  These last eight years, it’s been physical pain.

It feels like pain is an entity.  A companion that I can’t get rid of.  I’ve heard that pain comes as a guest but never leaves.  I might have metaphor wrong but the thought is clear.

I don’t talk to the pain.  I wrestle with it.  My mind is nagging.  I look at what is nagging it and realize it’s just pain.  I know that pain is associated with aging.  Many friends of mine are in pain.  I’m pretty sure the pain I’m in isn’t just aging.  It’s a kind of fucked up disease process that has no clear name.  I’m one of many that lives with this.  I don’t like it.

It doesn’t mean life isn’t good.  It doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot to be grateful for.  I do and I know it.  It means my experience of my life is tempered with constant pain either at the forefront or lurking around the edges of my consciousness.

I have tools I use when it gets real bad.  Writing.  Coloring.  Watching baseball.  Petting my dog.  Looking at the sky, trees, or clouds.  Focusing on that which makes me exceptionally lucky with a good life.  A woman I love and get to be with for the last 30 years and beyond.  A daughter I love.  A job I feel passionate about.  A sweet dog and quirky cat.  A view of the lake every day, all day.

The only thing I don’t have is freedom from Sir Pain.  Ronnie and I exchange reports on our pains of one form or another as well as our fears.  Fortunately, we spend as much time or more on our gratitude and the privilege of being together for as long as we have left.

We’ve been losing people since we were in our thirties.  We know very well how this goes.  It helps me alter my focus from pain to enjoyment of what I have in life.  Yet, I still feel the hurting.

I’ve learned from taking pictures of the lake, sky, and mountain that the best pictures are not when the sky is a cloudless blue.  I enjoy those infrequent cloudless days in the Pacific Northwest.  But, the best pictures are when there is a complexity of light and dark, shapes and movement.  That makes the richest pictures that make me go, “Wow.”  Similar to rainbows never appearing without rain drops.

It’s clear that the same is true of life.  Sure, those cloudless days are fun to have.  Though, the richness comes with complexity, good and bad.  Sir Pain adds that for me.  It’s an overdone strength.  I don’t need all that complexity.  But, seen from afar with perspective the picture is rich.  I’m grateful despite this guest over staying it’s welcome.  “Take a break, Sir Pain.  Don’t you have somewhere else to go?  Just don’t go to someone else I know.  You’re just not that fun to have around.”

L’Chaim.

Joceile

8.24.19

[Picture of Pattison Lake sunrise with mist by railroad trestle and clouds, February 2019.]