My body is a traitor, an amalgam of systems all malfunctioning in and out of sync with one another so that every day is a craps shoot as to what my health will look like. My brain misfires, and fear and trepidation assault me like twin armies hellbent on destroying my sanity. My metabolism refuses to get off its lazy arse and do anything, and so my reflection shows me the outcome of the wrong sort of diet and a relapse of inactivity. My digestive system flips a coin every day — heads, overactive; tails, underactive. And just for kicks, some days it flips the coin multiple times, just for literal shits and giggles. Physically, I feel my age — and then some. Mentally, well, that just depends on the day. Weariness hangs over me like a pall so very often. I have become a warrior of life, but even warriors grow tired of the fight. Discouragement is a constant companion, less enemy and more a steady presence. I’ve grown accustomed to its claws buried in my side, which is not to say that I enjoy it, merely that I’ve come to accept what I cannot change.
I sleep, not because I want to or because I enjoy it, but because it’s a necessary evil of self-care and sanity. Most nights I am plagued by dreams, more often than not of events that have not happened, that never will happen, that are so outrageous that they never could happen. And yet they whittle away at my mind and set the tone of my mood for a day. I shake them off as best I can, like kicking the dirt off my feet after a long hike along dirt paths. But much of those memories cling to me, blurry and unrecognizable but sobering and melancholy nonetheless.
My body betrays me, daily. I do what I can to tame it, to beat it into submission, but far too often it is still not enough. I am the interloper in my own skin, powerless to change my station except in minuscule ways. I feel as though if I only blow hard enough on the trajectory of my life, I might be able to change the course of my body’s traitorous ways. Instead, I suspect it may require a storm to truly effect such change.
So, I look to the horizon, because there is where the changes lie and it from there that the storms I see will come. I have learned not to fear the storm, but to welcome it, for it brings winds of change, rain of refreshment, and sunny skies of new and fresh beginnings behind it.
