Exhaling...

I've been feeling a bit down for a while. I drowned so much into a bottomless pit of self-sorrow, that I couldn't even tell you what was the real reason of me being sad. It's obvious to anyone who's been following everything that has happened in my life these past couple of months that whatever I am going through is very normal; however, I don't deal well with being sad or feeling sorry for myself. So, this is a typical cycle for me: fear, worry, sadness, anger, frustration, despair, in the middle something insightful happens (such as a great uplifting talk with someone, a book I read, meditation that provides answers, inspirational movie, etc...), snapping out of it - kind of similar to the five stages of grieving, but that's how I categorize my stages. This time around was no different.

I started feeling scared that I would have to live my life always having to dodge "bad" stuff and when I am not able to avoid them, deal with them. Then, I began to worry that I might be very prone to lots of bone fractures, due to the loss of bone density that comes with paralysis (osteoporosis). With four weeks’ worth of these haunting pre-occupations in my mind, I felt sad. I felt like my life would never be normal. Ironic. Shortly, the sadness turned into pure anger and frustration. That is when I began to question everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. So, now, my attention has been diverted from the original cause of all this internal chaos and has been redirected to everything and everyone else. I started disliking myself because I began to blame everything and everyone around me for all that is happening to me. I shut down, secluded myself from the world. This time around, I kept waiting for the epiphany to happen so that I could quickly snap out of my self-made hell. Nothing. Until today...

Before I go on, I would like to clear up that I'm still coping, but I don't feel so alone. I have a fantastic family and great friends. I don't mean to brag, but I am very, very blessed to be surrounded by such a group of people. This time, though, I realized that talking to them and venting about how I felt was not doing me any good. I couldn't figure out why in the beginning. A couple of days ago, it hit me like cold water. They walk. They get in and out of their cars with ease. Take 5-minute showers. They don't need to ask for help when things are out of their reach, spend 15 minutes looking for parking spaces that can accommodate their cars with their ramps (unfortunately, there are still people that park in h/c spaces that can walk perfectly fine)... They all want to be there for me desperately, but they cannot relate. I hope that they will never know what it is to be me and walk in my shoes, but in the same token, there are some things that I want to talk to with someone who can understand me and has been there and felt my pain.

Tonight, this happened. I spoke to a friend and he reminded me that some things we need to talk to people who have been through the same. While talking to him, things fell into perspective. I didn't need to feel bad for feeling bad. It's part of life, especially our lives. The huge snowball I had created started melting into a snowflake. And, suddenly, my heartfelt light again. This too shall pass. It's been a long road of recovery, nevertheless, it is recovery. I'm finally exhaling again.


This is one of my favorite Zen proverbs. While writing this blog, it kept on popping in my head:

There once was a small village where a young child was bought a horse for his 9th birthday... the villagers heard about this, and said that this was fantastic news… but when the Zen Master heard about this he simply said “we shall see”…

Three years later the boy fell of his horse and broke his legs, the villagers were distraught, “what terrible news” they said... but the Zen Master simply said, “We shall see”.

One year later the country went to war, and due to his injury the boy was able to stay at home instead of fighting, “what great news” said the villagers, and once again, the Zen Master simply said:

“We shall see”.

Life is just a series of peaks and troughs. In addition, you don’t know whether you’re in a trough until you’re climbing out, or on a peak until you’re coming down. You never know what’s around the corner. Everything happens for a reason...