Absolutely Still

A pool of water doesn’t reflect unless it’s absolutely still  

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Something I need to keep in mind.  I heard it today and thought I’d add it to balance my pity potty post.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to continue this journey.  The pain is understandably incomprehensible to those not familiar with chronic, intractable pain; even me most of the time, and nothing suppresses it. I just can’t wrap my mind around that,  And I really can’t imagine this pain and lack of management  continuing far into the future.   It’s so frustrating to keep hearing “your tumors are stable” after an MRI.   The pain rarely shows any mercy and I’ve been getting more and more dizzy spells.  And as I explained in the last post, the pain can increase without the tumors increasing.  I am far from stable.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually…far, far from stable. 

But shortly after sitting down to write this, I actually caught a break for a few hours and even left the house.  I am grateful for the break, trust me.  I feel small and petty when I complain that a few hours a month isn’t enough.

I felt withdrawal symptoms Saturday; it happens every once in a while.  And I have a new patch on and I took some back up morphine.  My chest is an angry red rash….maybe from the patches, maybe from one of the essential oils.  Or maybe just the tumors which riddle my chest (and everywhere else). Who knows?  I’m not sure I care.  But I talked to my pain doc’s nurse and she suggested I change the brand so I called the pharmacy and requested they do that.

I have this fear is that if I take matters into my own hands regarding ending my life I will be forced to come back to Earth and repeat another physically challenging life.  That scares the beans out of me.  I drive myself crazy thinking about the existence of G-d, telling myself that not so long ago people though the Earth was flat, then they thought it was the center of the Universe and when it was proven otherwise, people were burned at the stake or locked away in an asylum for speaking that truth.  So are we clinging to one last fantasy?  The one that has been drilled into our heads since who knows when?  Letting go of it doesn’t seem possible or even imaginable for some, me included though I give it a lot of thought.

I’ve had a lot of unexplainable things happen in my life, including spontaneous memories about living and dying in the Holocaust.   One major one came out of the blue and was very powerful.  And if that were true, why was I was then thrown into this life of hell almost immediately after?    I am so grateful my father is out of pain.  And I do feel his spirit.  At least I tell myself that’s what I’m feeling. I keep having these “dad moment memories” that make me smile or bring a tear to my eye.  When I was a kid, our house was in front of this large swamp and beyond that, a railroad track.  When my dad came in my room to say goodnight, you could often hear the whistles blowing from the train.  My dad would tell me it was ‘the bad guys leaving town”.

I love watching documentaries on the Cosmos, but I ask myself, once we find the answers to everything, what will become of faith?  Think about it.  For instance, if you were taking a course in something, and you knew every word in every book and every answer to every question prior to taking the class, why take it?   What joy would there be in it if there was nothing to learn?  And what joy would there be in being alive if there were no more energetic arguments?  Of course, no more wars would be nice.  Boiled down, they are always and forever about religion.  Not faith…religion.

Parts of our consciousness survive the body, is what I think.  If matter cannot be created or destroyed, it only makes sense that part of the soul does survive.  And maybe that’s all that is happening after death.  Some part of our being refusing to let go.  Clinging to the life we just left.  Ha!  I assure you, I will not be clinging to this life.

So if the body gives me nothing but pain, what the heck am I still hanging around for?  This is beyond exhausting.   I wish I could figure out a way to get my body to respond to this agony as if it were pleasurable.   I’d be in ecstasy all the time!  Would not need any painkillers…how ironic….addicts take it thinking it will be ecstasy, those of us that need it feel nothing but anguish, something the ecstasy- seekers eventually discover.

My dad didn’t read my blog much when he was alive; he told me it made him sad.  I told him to stop reading it.  But now he probably knows what’s in it.  Sorry dad.  Same advice.  Don’t read it.