Pentimento

I’ve been thinking of the word “pentimento” lately.  That’s what art historians call finding a painting under another painting….the artist having painted over it.  Or another artist, I guess.  Anyway, I think we are all pentimentos.  Layer upon layer of everything that makes us human, or makes us think we are.   Sometimes we think our “good” qualities cover our “bad” and sometimes it’s the other way around.  All depending on how we interpret those thoughts.  And I put good and bad in quotes because I hate labeling behaviors and the things that happen to us in life.

I saw this movie where one of the characters was wearing an apron that read “shitake happens”.  I laughed out loud.  Shitake happens to us all the time.  All. The. Time.   Two weeks ago I was having that awful time because one challenge after the next was coming at me like tennis balls from a machine.  Then, after the 10^th “challenge” I noticed the base I keep my phone in wasn’t working right.  I almost flew into a rage and then caught myself and started laughing.  I realized these things would keep happening until I figured out a way to deal with it without histrionics.  True, I had every “right” to go ballistic given all that was happening but that right was just causing me more pain.  Ouch.  Giving yourself the “right” to feel bad is kind of sadistic.  Why I must learn that over and over again ad nauseum I’ll never know.  Regardless of your life circumstances, you have to pay attention, even if it feels wholly unfair.  Because fair and unfair don’t exist.  Things just are the way they are, or as people like to say, “It is what it is” And it is.  What it is. 

The pain is bad today without the contributing drama.  Mornings are the worst.  My legs are on fire, my bowels are a mess and if I look to far afield panic sets in.  That’s why I can only take a minute at a time.  Funny, that.  I mean, one can’t possibly take more than a minute at a time (quite literally, of course) but we bandy about that saying like we are all in recovery.  Maybe we are.  Life is like being in recovery of our spiritual self.

Pam hears back from the doctor today.  She stopped by both Saturday and Sunday just to say hello.  I think she’s starting to accept the very real possibility the news won’t be good.  I wish I could help her in some way.  She tells me I have been a great help to her, but I wish I could help financially as well.  Life is so frigging unfair.  I know no one said it was fair, but why is it that the kindest people I know are challenged in ways I wouldn’t wish on anyone, including every politician that rules with his/her bank account.  Then again, it’s those very challenges that make us who we are, providing we learn from them.

There isn’t a square inch of me that doesn’t hurt.  Guess there is more to learn.  Sigh.