Hurting my back - bad - and recovring

January 27, 2017

I am doing better. I can walk around the house without a cane in the afternoon/evening.

Pain is minor as long as I accept my limitations.I have a lot of time to think while I am flat on my back resting. I am rearranging my life. Maybe I just needed something like this to happen. No. Not really. But since it’s where I am at, I am going to make the best of it. I may relapse. There are unknowns with my diagnosis. I don’t know how tomorrow will be. But I am in a place where I can be OK. (Read my Medium/G+ post from yesterday if you want to know more about last weekend: ). I now know I have to work to stay sane, fortunately, my job is accommodating. This has taught me that retiring is not a good idea, even though I used to think so. It’s amazing how little of what I did was essential. Most mobile games suck. Alcohol is a wonderful drug, and in reasonable amounts, a lot less damaging than some of the other pharmaceuticals, which I have stopped taking because they made me sick. I miss gaming, but I worked for 3 hours today. I got a setup for working on my laptop in my bed, and I am writing this being able to sit at the kitchen table for ten minutes at a time. Life is good.

Feb 5, 2017

I’ve practiced negativity, pessimism, and anxiety all my life. I am very good at it.

The truth is, you become what you practice. And, I extend, what you believe.

Like. I believe I play guitar badly. No matter how much I practice, how well I play, that belief is going to inform how I feel about my playing guitar. I believe many horrible things about myself. Like, I am a failure (objective observation indicates I am not).

My (stupid) back injury put me in a place of incredible pain, and a place where I have to adjust my physical capabilities, and rebuild and rehab them. I can do that. I know, because I’ve done it once before (don’t give me the age shit), so I will ride dirt bikes again, even if I may not do tae kwon do, because it just hammers your knees. I know how to rehab my body.

My mind is another story. In all that pain, I considered leaving everything behind, but the drugs I had in my cabinet would just make me throw up. A botched suicide would be worse. I tallied up my necessity, and the world would simply go on. Some people would be very sad, and then go on with their lives. I am not important. Be real about that.

So, what am I alive for? What can I do that is unique enough that I should preserve it?

Maybe I have an obligation to live, simply because I was given this precious gift of life. It doesn’t matter by whom, or whether it’s random, I was given this. I am genetically unique. I’ve done and experienced stuff few people have. I am a writer. Maybe that’s enough? Maybe something I write can nudge one other person, one of relevance to the nudgings of the world. Being a catalyst, then?