Yesterday was my three year anniversary. Three years since that bleak Thursday that divided my life into Before and After.
It was yesterday, and I forgot.
It doesn't mean I am free of it. I have forged an uneasy truce with my body. It is like the shock of finding out you've been cheated on - you can't ever trust again. Not when you've been so blind. Your body's betrayal stings sharper than any other.
So with no other choice, we cohabit - the body and the mind.
Every pain sends a course of panic through me. Two days after my 37th birthday, the pain on my upper left spine became difficult to ignore. I tell myself, you've been sleeping on a terrible mattress, with metal springs standing prominently below the fabric, digging into soft necks and shoulders. That's all it is. But the pain is insistent, it nags, it is a little finger pressing repeatedly into my brain. Until a week passes, or two, and it is gone.
The truth is I will never be free of this, no matter how I fill my life with distraction.
But yesterday, on a cold, sunny Monday, I wrote, I sang, I had dinner with my best friend.
And I forgot.
It was yesterday, and I forgot.
It doesn't mean I am free of it. I have forged an uneasy truce with my body. It is like the shock of finding out you've been cheated on - you can't ever trust again. Not when you've been so blind. Your body's betrayal stings sharper than any other.
So with no other choice, we cohabit - the body and the mind.
Every pain sends a course of panic through me. Two days after my 37th birthday, the pain on my upper left spine became difficult to ignore. I tell myself, you've been sleeping on a terrible mattress, with metal springs standing prominently below the fabric, digging into soft necks and shoulders. That's all it is. But the pain is insistent, it nags, it is a little finger pressing repeatedly into my brain. Until a week passes, or two, and it is gone.
The truth is I will never be free of this, no matter how I fill my life with distraction.
But yesterday, on a cold, sunny Monday, I wrote, I sang, I had dinner with my best friend.
And I forgot.