Time Marches

 

One more sleep until I get the SI injection.  Frankly, it can't come too soon.  This week has been 'extra'.

I am transitioning from opioids to a new pain medication, one which cannot be taken *with* opioids, so for a week I had no effective pain control.  Now, I'm in the introductory dose of the new pain medication, and far from an *effective* dose.  Yet.

We aren't sure that the new drug will actually work on the pain being generated by the damaged SI joint, but the corticosteroid *should*.  

Between the two, I am hopeful that things will get a bit 'better' for me.

When I was a kid, I never felt very comfortable in my 'child's' body.  I felt...older.  I know I acted older - adults always commended me on my 'maturity'.  After my full growth, I was tall, with a 'bitchy resting face' so looked 'stern'.  This was an advantage for certain jobs.

Like the time I was working in the high school library as a clerk.  One of my jobs was to maintain 'order' - as in shush students who were talking loudly or being unruly.  

One day the other (junior) clerk came into my office space complaining about a table of noisy students, not wanting to confront them.  She was barely 2 years older than they were and I think felt a bit intimidated.  I told her I'd deal with them, then discovered the 'ring leader' of the unruly group was...my 'little' brother.

I approached the table they were sitting at from behind my brother with my bitchy resting face on.  A couple of the guys facing me noticed and muttered something just as my hand came down on the back of my brother's chair and I said "Don, you and your friends can go to the cafeteria if you want to visit; the library is for quiet studying."

And walked away.

At his memorial service one of the guys who had been at the table that day reminded me of that event and said that as they walked out of the library he had asked my brother who 'that bitch' was.  My brother muttered "My sister. Don't tell anyone."

I felt 'old' compared to that table of teens.  But I had always felt 'old', all of my life to that point.  It wasn't until I hit my early 30s that I suddenly felt like I 'fit' into my body.  Whatever makes me, me, appears to be about 30ish years old.

So now?  Now, I'm in my 70s with a body that has seen lots of work, lots of sweat and injury and pain and my inner 30 something is going what the hell?  

Intellectually I know precisely what is going on.  My meatsack (as some refer to our body) has had it's check engine light come on - again.  Only this time my ability to recover is diminished.

My inner 30 something 'me' is still ambitious.  Still curious.  Still wanting to do stuff.  My 70+ injured body is going, nope, nope, nope.

My struggle right now is to find enough spoons to continue to do what my inner self wants to do.  Keep weaving.  Keep teaching.  

But it gets harder every day.  The desire is there.  Oh, most certainly, the desire continues.  The energy spoon drawer is sadly empty.

My little plot of hope still blooms.  I watch the clock.  In 24 hours I will have had the injection, and based on the diagnostic jab 3 weeks ago, the effect should be pretty much immediate.

So I am tenderly feeding my little plot of hope, gratitude.  Because I *am* grateful I am still here.  I can stop and rest and then - hopefully - continue.

My brother cannot.