Illness

We’re not broken, just bent . . .

                                    . . . Pink

I’m coming out of a four-week-long tunnel filled with the flu. Yes I suffered the usual symptoms: aches, fevers, malaise, cough, congestion and fatigue, but even more prominent and disturbing was a sense of dullness, ennui, and just not caring about anything.

There was also fear, seeing my granddaughter ill: couch bound, listless, barely responding for hours at a time.

I stopped most activities: no emails, no writing, no bill paying. My life suspended.

I fell into watching TV series: Death in Paradise and Rosemary and Thyme, and I needlepointed, listening to Maisie Dobbs and Inspector Gamache mysteries on tape. I got lost in fantasy for hours on end.

Not even journaling or meditating. Pissed at God.

In the midst of it all came a sense of ending. Was this the end of my life? Was this how people die? Do they lose interest in life, get lost in the pablums of TV shows and novels? Are they are no longer able to come up with one single new, creative idea or activity, and is there no urge to peek out of the quagmire of dullness?

A frisson of fear came as I remembered my mother’s later years, spookily like my own in that she was stuck on her favorite TV shows – General Hospital, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy – and Sidney Sheldon novels. Had I become my mother?

And the self-loathing – I berated myself for not being able to pull myself up by my bootstraps. Why can’t you get out of your funk, get out of your rut, get your ass in gear? Do something, for Christ’s sake!

And then I began to feel better, but the detached behaviors had taken hold and it was hard to reverse the numbness, the darkness. I struggled to climb out of the pit I’d allowed myself to fall into.

I took up journaling again – and meditating. I went to the gym for a ten-minute workout and came home worn out, but mollified – a little. I noticed the spring blossoms. I updated my bank accounts. I cleaned under my kitchen sink – instigated by a liquid soap spill. I felt a frisson of pleasure – barely noticeable. I had to focus on celebrating and being grateful for these tasks in order to pierce the shadowy bubble that obscured my soul.

So now I am close to being back to health. It almost feels like I had a near death experience – it’s like I was giving up on life, giving up on myself, who I am, what I want, what I dream.

For a while I hadn’t dared to dream. Zot! That is sobering.

We’re not broken, just bent

And we can learn to love again . . .

Indeed!