A work of darkness

I've been coming to terms with medical uncertainties for a while now. There's little to be done with fresh sharp pain but to feel it. After a while, though, it sinks deep and stitches itself into skin and muscle. I can speak of it, often, without tears. The brittle pull during the day is discomfort not hurt, the sort of dull ache when flesh knits together but a scar has yet to form.

I still don't know how the story will end, or when. I don't know if the solution will be physical or mental, a coming to terms of some sort that some things aren't meant to be. I don't know how I will be changed on the other side. I'm trying not to grow bitter, not to ask the "Why me?" question to which my 25-year-old self would have replied: "And why not you?"

Really, it's an overwhelmingly common problem. My optometrist, the lady who gives me facials, my therapist and my mother are quick to share their stories, the stories they've heard, the things I should do. Everyone has a solution, except apparently the over-educated, wonderfully sensitive specialist who calls to check on me after every painful procedure. So really, why (or why not) me?

I wish I knew. I'm trying, for now, to reconcile the mental confusion with the physical. Is this something I brought on? Is there a reason I shouldn't have this thing I didn't know I wanted until I was told I couldn't have it? Are these medicines hurting my body to heal a problem that isn't meant to be solved? I could perhaps write a book (or at least a really long blog rant) with such dilemmas.

For now, I'm beginning to try to frame the issue with words, name it into something tangible I can nurse into healing. My own words elude me still, and so I pick from others', slip my hurt into their stories to try them on for size. The ones that fit right now are those of permanent loss and uncertainty: Death, cancer, the loss of a loved one. (I wonder if someday this feeling will shrink, so the words of a struggling snark writer for a popular website don't feel quite so skimpy when held against my hurt.) The words that resonate the most: "It is one thing to endure pain. It is another to have hope."

The days of physical pain I tolerate are minuscule compared to those who live these tales. It seems, probably is, silly to resonate with them. But measuring pain in this way always is futile. Yet I find myself -- the person who promised herself she'd never weigh feelings against each other -- doing precisely this thing, if only because I can't find another way to wrap my words around this problem. To a writer, finding the right words is always the answer. And I still fumble for phrases in the dark.

"Ode to Healing"
John Updike

A scab is a beautiful thing - a coin
the body has minted, with an invisible motto:
In God We Trust.
Our body loves us,
and, even while the spirit drifts dreaming,
works at mending the damage that we do.
Close your eyes, knowing
that healing is a work of darkness,
that darkness is a gown of healing,
that the vessel of our tremulous venture is lifted
by tides we do not control.
Faith is health's requisite:
we have this fact in lieu
of better proof of le bon Dieu

Wander some

There's an odd peace that goes with the words "I don't know."

Once in a while, it's comforting to simply face the facts and know that something hurtful crossed my life, but that is all it was. It had no evil intent, was not part of some divine plan, and lacked any medical basis. It could happen again, or it might not. It happened, and it sucked, but that's all there was to it.

It's easy to slip from this peaceful ignorance to rationalizing, piecing facts together to spot patterns so I can avoid future hurt -- whether through action or inaction. Worry, fear, hope -- all the things that squeeze the heart so painfully -- they come from this squished up mess of fact and emotion.

Better, simpler, more peaceful to only accept that I don't know. And neither does any higher power, or my doctor, or anyone else. There is no greater plan guiding us here.

But without one, I am free to choose my pace on this windy road: sometimes halting, sometimes racing. When I can't read the signs, I can simply follow whatever instinct forced me down this path, even when I don't know where it ends, or how, or why.