Crossing lines

 

What if the collateral lines around the ails and consequence of continuous pain were clear to us before ordinary life becomes a draining trial of pain management, straining not to loose sight of the meaningful, muddled in a pattern of temporary self soothing distraction and escape.

On Friday my physical therapist and I were talking about the effects years of chronic pain have on people.  I had my thoughts around this but my therapist has been providing PT for more than 20 years and confirmed them. She said 90% of her patients in chronic pain admit to struggling with acute and often debilitating depression and added the remaining 10% that don't admit to it are lairs.

I don't think this is related to physical pain alone. The same is true for emotional pain, probably even more so. What starts as a few threaded inclinations to manage despondent frustration or gnashing physical pain, in time become a dark and wearing cord affecting all areas of life. The pain blurs our focus as we seek an island of relief often influencing us to cross lines we otherwise wouldn't.

 Escape in Hong Kong

I'm guessing it's nearly impossible to know what to expect when the horizon of life becomes clouded in pain and despondency.  We're under-prepared  for its effect on our wellness, our judgement, our relationships and our businesses. The suffering becomes a haze that we simply try to get through in the best way we can but in the end do whatever is needed to get to the other side.  And then we must live with the often damaging consequences of our decisions and our omissions and we must accept the responsibility for them; And then too we learn from them or have them destroy us.  

Not everyone survives but for the majority that do these experiences often forge intriguing people of interest, tattooed with authentic markings that compel us to pause.  These are the courageous ones, reluctantly so to be fair, but regardless become the best of us and they draw us in. They're attune to trials of survival and become a texture for others to feel, rescuers from the emptiness of believing we are nothing more than a number in a herd of mundane travelers.  People, wounded and scarred are the most beautiful so please stop parading a so called perfect life.  If it ever existed it's not that interesting. Show where your battered and brave soul has been.  Aspire to be better.              

Peace and roll strong.

Ride

 

What is it that makes us decide what we become?  The more I think about this the more I think we allow ourselves about as much contentment as we think we deserve. That's saying something I guess, given the affects our set of experience and upbringing has on this.

My head spins around this sometimes but it doesn't help. I land on the same reality every time; the reality that whats done is done and you don't get over it, you just live with it and it lives through you.  Hopefully it brands us with a character goodness but this is not always the case.  Too often the affects make us act and become the very thing we feared we would be.  I guess recognizing this a a good place to affirm there's an opportunity to allow events; good and bad, to mold positive or negative individual traits.  We decide which they will be.

To be thankful and content is to decide to be as such, but it's easier for some people than others, I think, but maybe not. Either way its tiring to worry about it and feeling like you're going bloody crazy. I usually work through this stuff when I ride.  I ride, just ride, thankful and content and it gets me there, into a sweet nothingness.

Peace & roll strong.