| He’d gotten past the fear of the moment, the impending reality of the worst that could happen to him had rushed into reality washing away any cowardly notion in a flood of reality. Funny how it happened so fast, fear didn’t have a chance to rush in. Fear is a luxury of fooling oneself into thinking we have time to ponder ones emotions without a clear head. But sitting in the hospital all you can do is think. If you’re immobile, its worse. Each day before the time to change the guaze the morphine took all that away. The thinking. Me I like nothing better than to sit with myself pondering. If my thoughts get ahead of me then I just sleep it off. However, Joseph hadn’t trained his heart to just let things be. He had just the opposite of an inner doormat. He wanted to do something, but that gave him anxiety that he couldn’t meditate through. His only relief from himself was the morphine. It relieved him of poverty; of a need for love; of revenge through making the death of the rival more dramatic (a truly unfulfilling emotion-the other guy was dead); of status and provided him a chance to just love himself. He began to look forward to the stress relieving wave to come capture his thighs, spine and finally head and being. It gave him a temporary excuse he thought “to not give a shit”. And when he didn’t give a shit, he could blame what he felt was a lack of care on being drugged. Rehabilitation makes a part of you functional, and can deceive you into thinking your head is clear. “Start moving it now, or never be able to move it again.” “Tear at the pain.” “Your luckier than the guy next to you in physical rehabilitation.” “He lost his figures and his face.” And my favorite, “The virus ate a large enough section of his torso after the accident…etc. Seeing these kinds of things confirmed to Joseph that he was blessed. Still a lot of the rehabilitation exercises came easier with pain killers’. Pain too is a feasible way to use sensation to drown out one’s own feelings. Before he was born, his mother burned her chest under the shower to regain the attention of his father after she had run him off. And he’d once seen his mother cut herself to feel just the right amount of pain to drown out her emotions; when she thought he and everyone else in the house was asleep. The pains of growing old had cured any of that in his grandmother. Her hips hurt her considerably. But she preferred the pain over the drugs. She looked sweet on the outside, but any lady could tell you that her eyes are made from something pure that resembles fire. She is a woman who could seduce just about any man and some women at any senior gathering, or cut a hole through a soul like Superman.“Just learn to live well with it baby”, was her montra.. |
