Palliativity 192: sandcastles in the tide

This past weekend has been logged as a major life event for a number of reasons.

Transcendental experiences, family, reuniting with friends and
quite a few realizations that will require some time to sort out.

Sunday morning, my partner and I reunited with one of our best friends after a much deserved night of shenanigans. She is about to embark on a new journey with her exciting project, Queerituality. Check it out. She’d going to change the world.

The cafe we brunched at happened to be where I showed in my very first art opening at age 7. Fitting bookends indeed. We played catch-up in the best way, skipping all the incidentals and jumping right into the big life questions. French toast can bring out the best in people who are already awesome.

I hadn’t yet told her about my life changing RFA procedure. Her partner also suffers from a chronic illness and the two of them have been supportive in a way that others can’t. In light of her new project, we talked about creating queer safe-space where we are free to be ourselves together. As the discussion evolved, we recognized something we also share: medical safe-space. No judgement or fear. Not sympathy; just earnest listening and empathy. I became consciously aware thru our conversation that I had actually undergone a spiritual awakening after my procedure. Without the pain, there remains only the thinnest vail between me and the world around me. I feel connected in ways I was never free to feel before.

In light of the spoon theory, I hadn’t really thought about the unspoken other half of the metaphorical world-view. If I only have so much energy to expend on a certain project, be it an art opening or making coffee in the morning, I held myself to the unvoiced standard that whatever I do ought to be perfect. I felt  like I was constantly building castles in the sand while the tide was slowly creeping in. I did not have the resources to gather and build out of better material and the indomitable march of time was the enemy. My only allies were the here and now. Between waves of pain, pills, injections and insomnia, I could only do so much. If whatever I was working on fell thru, rage and depression would hit me hard in the chest. This could be set off by something as simple and small as forgetting to buy something at the grocery store or lossing the save-state on an art piece.

Post procedure, I am so much happier and more able to live and accomplish and even fail. I’m learning that I can relish in spontaneity and that my carriage doesn’t have to turn into a pumpkin at midnight. And even if it does, I know that I can pick myself up, and try again without some miraculous act of will nor having to pay the price in pain afterwards – for both myself and my loved ones. I can now walk in the world with care and ease, redirecting my jedi levels of concentration from denying my chronic pain into some greater purpose of conquest, adventure and grand ambitions. I now have the strength and focus to not only change my own perspective and perceptions, but to truly change the world.

I am however essentially myself; if anything, more so than at any other time in my life.

I am recognizing, as my friend pointed out over coffee, that I am mangled in a way that fits my world.

Amen.

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APOCALYPTO NOUVEAU at FIRECAT PROJECTS

[ 4.26 — 6.1.2013 ]