To those of you who read this blog, I apologize for not having written earlier. I have spent the last week trying to give up control.
As we age, things happen to our bodies and its our job, my job in this case, to deal with it. The knee that has troubled me for three years is finally going to be replaced this month. I know, I know...knees are replaced every day...not such a big deal. Well it is a big deal when its happening to you.
How does this relate to control? Because after an operation on the same knee in January, six injections and months of physical therapy, I realized there was no other option but another operation. That was when I began to wrestle with the facts:, older people are the majority of knee recipients (definitely puts me in that category) ; the rehabilitation is a prolonged one (ugh, more work); its very painful (meds glorious meds). Then, when the surgeon told me I had to enter a rehab facility after the surgery, I lost it. All I could think of was the hospital my Mother had been in for eighteen months: the smell, the food, everything about it disgusted me, but it was supposedly the best of the choices we had at the time. That memory didn't help me to accept the inevitable.
So I have spent the last week trying to adjust, crying, talking to myself, alienating a lot of people simply because I couldn't give up the illusion that I had control over my future and over my body which is beginning to show its years. Now I realize my future depends on the surgeon, the caregivers and how hard and constant I am in rehab (talk about handing over control!) I understand now that the only control I have is to enter this experience knowing I will work hard as anything in rehab, that I will give it my all.
So in finally moving forward, I am allowing myself to lose the way, to give that responsibility to others and to take upon myself only what I can manage.
I have never forgotten that line from Galway's poem. I guess in the end, it is all about surrender.
I would love to hear from you.
Christina
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I feel your pain and understand with my heart and my mind the upset. I have all these very complicated feelings about changing and aging, I am much younger and I notice every single change and I am amaze that all of us adapt to the losses and gains and changes. The mind and its symphony of chemical messengers was wisely design to an extent. So much it is asked from us and we have all these technology, psychological, spiritual, otherwise, to just keep up and to deny on daily basis that we have no control. It is so much work, sometimes it hurts more than others and it is deeply scary. I think that when we denied that the changes affect us is when we are further away from feeling whole. Then we find the way and reconnect, just like when you did in Target with that Mexican woman...
ReplyDeleteThe ones who love you will hold you and your hurts safe in their own incredible and limited ways. It is when we go thought deep transformation like the one you are about to enter when we feel so lonely... and we do the unexpected. It is Ok. It is hard to have to have these teachers. Sometimes the only way to go is by being in the dark of the night.... some nights are longer than others and all nights' darkness are different. Only the power of love is true healing. Only trusting love can be felt. I know that you are loved so.... Part of the letting go... is focusing on the light that enters through the cracks or our wounds. Leonard Cohen has a powerful song about this....