I’m relaxing. Enjoying the evening. I’ll probably be up rather late; I collapsed into a foggy, dreamy, lush nap shortly after I got home from work (and after making a short trip to a favorite local pie spot to pick up a pie – why not? I like pie…). I woke refreshed, and found my Traveling Partner had slept through the time I was napping, himself, relaxing on the couch. We must have needed the sleep. Dinner was simple, nothing fancy.
…There’s nothing about this that is significant, important, or, probably, even interesting. It’s just a quiet evening with nothing much going on. It’s pleasant, and that’s enough.
I’m in a lot of pain tonight. It’s not “new pain”. Just my arthritis. Chronic. Predictable. But not new. I mean, shit, I first started feeling the twinges of what would become my “constant companion” in… 1988? 1989? Something like that. About 35 years ago. At first I thought there was “something seriously wrong” with my spinal fusion – no one explicitly warned me about the likelihood that osteoarthritis might set in, in the adjacent vertebrae, or gave me any idea what to expect when it did… until after it was part of my experience. Not much of a fucking “warning”, but what could have been done? It’s not like a warning about arthritis would have caused me to decline the surgery that lets me walk, stand, and get around as well (and go as far) as I do. So… I hurt. I mostly don’t mention it out loud to other people. I probably minimize it more often than I should when I’m talking to my Traveling Partner. I don’t like him to worry, or stress over it, and for fucks sake, what could he even do about it? Basically nothing. So… why bitch? I just deal with it and try to move on. Take medication when I need it. Keep myself moving (because being too still too much of the time definitely makes things worse over time – a lesson learned decades ago). Sometimes it’s hard. Life, too. So… yeah. So what?
I distract myself with entertaining videos. I write. I listen to music. Play video games. Read books. I enjoy life. It’s already likely to seem far too short. 🙂
No one likes to hurt. Pain sucks. I remind myself how common it is that we do. For sure there are people who have it much worse, more of the time, than I do. Perspective; it is so much more profound to experience contentment and joy, because I definitely do know what it feels like to be mired in pain and misery. Maybe it’s enough.
…Be kind to people. It’s not always obvious how much pain someone is in, and how it defines their experience. We’re all just people. Pain is part of being human.
Live. Work. Sleep. Wake. Repeat.
It’s time to begin again.
Evening Light 