It’s official. Low is launched, typos and all. I feel as though a huge wave has washed over me and taken away all the stuff that weighed me down, gold chains with padlocks and so on. I guess once a book is baked and brown, it’s as good as done. No going back. And that’s how I like things. On to the next one.
The very, very best thing that has happened to me outweighs having a book of my own in my hands. Outweighs seeing my tiny, 98 year-old grandma walk down the stairs to the car, eat like a horse at the Chinese restaurant, and walk back up those stairs. Even outweighs standing barefoot in my dad’s garden which is wilder than a palamino, watching the sun on the lake on the last day of Spring.
The best thing that has happened to me is my leg pain has settled, and i can walk without hurting. For those of you who think this is boring, try strapping red hot pokers to your calves and setting about your day. Imagine that this might be your fate for the rest of your life.
My leg pain is something that will likely come again. I had it for years, until last summer. It could well be due to the fact that something, a bulging disc in my spine, maybe, is pressing on a nerve. Like my mental illness, it will rear its ugly head in the future, I can almost guarantee it.
I have to be careful. I realize that when i feel healthy and strong and unconquerable is likely when I am most vulnerable. Like last summer, when one friend thought I was manic. I wasn’t, but I was drunk on my own sense of well-being, and thought it would last forever. Lesson learned, universe. I am not a diamond, but a thing made of perishables- flesh, thoughts, feelings. Not a piece of rock. Something more evolved, but softer and prone to periodic disintegration.
Still, i can walk again and it doesn’t hurt. I can imagine I can go anywhere, do anything. I like to dream about that, but i have to remember to be careful. When I was 30, I learned that even though I had made a lot of gains, I was still subject to the constraints of my physcial and mental form. That’s not what a lot of people believe but i have come up against the walls of myself too many times now to believe they are not solid. Ofcourse, with the application of a little energy, solids become something else, but I’m not ready to play fast and loose with my molecular structure.
I guess when I was 30 i stll thought that burning with the eternal flame of happiness was possible. That’s what i hoped for. anyway. Now that I’m almost 45, happiness is not suspect but it’s like a picnic in a canoe on a summer lake. It’s not going to last forever, so just enjoy it while you can. Take a photo. Try not to tip.
annaquon 