I've sat up beyond the time my eyes should close on countless nights over the years.
Why?
A silent struggle that hides behind closed doors.
The familiar fear I know all too well grips me awake.
When psychosomatic pain has been bad, laying down has often been like a trap.
Every movement is far from comfortable.
It's like a cage I know I have to get into, but I feel so deeply afraid of.
Some mornings, I have to do this kind of laid-down shuffle to the edge of the bed, wincing and groaning as I attempt to complete the mammoth task of getting my legs over the threshold.
Now, keep in mind, these are the worst. On good mornings, I can get out of bed without a sound.
I must remember to never again take for granted the action of being able to sit up in bed.
Such a simple act.
We wake, then we sit up.
But more times than I care to remember, I've been trapped on my back, or trapped on my side, unable to get up.
I try and try to turn myself around through the pain, only to have to soften back into the position I cant get myself out of.
'I'll try again in a moment...'
As I collapse into a sea of helplessness.
Lovers and partners who share a bed with me for the first time have on occasion woken and shared their concern with me...
I'll never forget an ex-partner telling me one morning when I was in a flare up that he thought I needed an ambulance because of the agonising sounds I made in my sleep.
...to which I could only apologize that my pain kept him awake.
Those days when physically trying to get out of bed is a mountain to climb are some of my worst.
And then, once I'm there, once I've completed what seemed impossible... I've got to get my socks on.
Never again will I take for granted the days I can put my socks on with ease.
I haven't had days like this for some time.
I did—a couple of years ago, this was my normal.
I thought those days of severity like that had passed me by.
I thought I'd made enough progress.
I thought I was just working with the lingering aches still with me.
The last little strands I hadn't untangled.
I thought I was finally more in control than the parts that fear so much to loosen their grip.
But as I approach the day I will fly to Peru,
the day I embark on a journey to live with a Shipibo family who will share their medicine with me,
the medicine of the jungle plants,
as the sounds of those spirits get closer and the parts within me become more afraid of changing forever,
the pain returns like a fire that burns through my bones.
The fear of change, the fear these parts have of no longer being in control, creates a cacophony of new and old symptoms—incapacitation at its finest.
I get it. The protection has been there for 20 years; no part is going to give up the fight that easily.
I feel like my subconscious is fighting with everything it's got to stop me from going to Peru.
And as I battle with this concept—that change is not safe—
the body that I thought had hugely improved slips back into days that remind me of some of the darkest times.
And what I'm noticing: I'm noticing gratitude amongst the fear.
That's new.
Gratitude for the fact I can still get out of bed, I can still put my socks on, I can still cook myself a meal, and watch the starlings fly down in great clouds of life.
I'm seeing the growing gratitude, despite the fact things are feeling really, really hard.
I'm still working on trying to have my first thought of the day not be one of pain. Every night when I go to sleep, I remind myself...
"Tomorrow, Lela... wake and share words of love with your body before anything else."
I know I need to love her, and I am trying. I am trying so deeply.
But as pain has been my body's norm for so many years, anger comes more easily than love. Fear often wins over joy.
I think the gratitude I'm noticing is the beginning of love.
It is a softening of the edges.
A step towards an embodiment of self-love which will free me.
I've never felt this gratitude before while in the most painful flares.
Usually severity like this has me only feeling hopeless.
And I can only think that it's here now because I'm more able to see and feel the beauty that is my body, even through the pain...
...because I'm coming closer to truly loving me.
