I missed posting yesterday, Monday, so I don't know what today's count is. Is this day 41 or 42?

I did show up for my day 41, but not completely. Not with the whole package. On my side of the world, I wrote, but didn't complete the whole shebang.
So, it shows up here as not showing up at all.

I've been in severe body-wide pain, and it's taken me off the boards. I wasn't really prepared for it this round. I've known body-wide pain before, but not while I've been "showing up."

I haven't decided yet if this is an all-or-nothing sort of deal....I like to complete my update with a sketch and a song. What if I just do the sketch, or the song, or just the writing, alone?

I'll need a second to get showing up in this kind of pain worked out, and then I'm sure I'll be back on track.

My typical way of handling this kind of pain is to disappear, in a way. So I'm figuring out how to manage my pain and stay present.

It's hard to acknowledge the pain. It doesn't fit with me or who I am. It's like a clay body and a glaze that doesn't fit. In general, I go on living my life as if it's not happening, but I think that involves life with a fair amount of dissociation.

Dissociation and showing up don't pair well, either, for me.

I'm way too active and excited about life for this kind of pain.
Guess what, pain doesn't care about my ambitions.
I think pain has its own goals.

If I keep showing up, despite the pain, will pain learn its own lesson and leave me alone, once and for all?

Right now, life is slapping the pain glaze on me, anyway, and I'm feeling really useless.
It's frightening to be in so much pain, not know exactly why it is happening, and not know how to make it better.

I'm not new to pain, but every time it strikes after a break, I have to get readjusted in order to keep moving on as a new partner, of sorts. It seems it's my friend to the end.

Somewhere along the line, I think I'm going to have to make peace with this foe.

I'm doing the best I can.

I fell asleep and woke up to this song.
So I decided to drag myself out of bed, along with pain, up to my studio to post about it.

Showing up makes me feel a little more dignified, even if the pain gets the best of me some days.

It's easy to feel like everything has been taken from me when the pain is laid on thick.
My playful nature is dampened. I start to question my breath, and what good I am to anyone.

It's so hard to stay with it...to stay with anything.
It feels like I'm dying, but in the end, that's what we're all doing.
So it's nothing too major, even if that were the truth.
Because ultimately, it is.

But, I do have this moment to make the day I have, count.
A few months ago, laying in the ER, when I had to have emergency surgery, dying was a close reality. It was a major disappointment that I felt like I hadn't even started to do what I was put here to do.

At least now, I've started.
I can't let myself forget...

One day, soon enough, it will all be over.
I have to remind myself that eventually, the pain subsides...it usually leaves as mysteriously as it comes on.
Like how birth comes on, in a way. Who really knows they are going to be born? One day you're nowhere, and then...one day...you're a human with a body and all the stuff that happens to human bodies is happening to you.

This is called your life. As far as we know for sure, everyone here gets one of them.

The same with how we leave.

Being born is generally not our call.
I have to keep pledging that my leaving is not my call, either.
The only thing that is "my call" is showing up.
Doing my best,

So, here I am, still living and dying along with the rest and best of the world.
With dignity.

So many things must be evaluated and let go of on the trail.
Don't let dignity be one of them.

About today's Tuesday Tune:

Patrick o' Hearn Official Website
Review of Patrick's "Top 5 Albums"

Patrick O' Hearn Wikipedia