Pft, bleh, ugh, grrr, wahhh ---

 

Where did this daily - almost - mantra originate?

I don't really remember, but I know it has something to do with the monotony that I have felt since my head exploded and the life I knew went up in flames. I was trying to rebuild something that resembled that other life, and that wasn't happening. I wish I could say why, exactly, but I honestly don't know.

    Still, even as I studied Buddhist philosophy and embarked on meditative practice I kept it up - every day being to me, with the short term memory issues, so similar to the last that they WERE truly almost indistinguishable. This is still the case these 15 years later. My life is -- empty, in my opinion, devoid of purpose and meaning. I feel that I just wake up every day, against my will, and take care of this body, that I really consider to be a prison, and then go back to bed. I consider these to be joyless chores. I honestly do. I just trudge along through it until I can finally go back to bed. Then I do it all again the next day, like Sisyphus, just pushing the boulder up the hill. I have no idea how it hasn't sunk to a truly debilitating level, either. It has not.

    I do get out of bed and do the necessary tasks, such as exercising, feeding, bathing and washing this thing. I have experienced a distinct separation from this body, which has not risen to the level of an actual psychotic break from it. I just feel -- disconnected from it. It is almost as if I watch it from a short distance. Maybe sci-fi fans can understand this as being slight "out of phase" with it. 

    In the beginning, it was far more enraging. Studying Buddhist theory did help with this, though and likely really did keep it in check. The concept that says "I am not my body." is much easier to understand when one has experienced an actual separation of sorts between their consciousness and the physical body such as a severe brain injury and neurological dysfunction. It probably makes it, from a standpoint of mental health, much EASIER (for lack of a better word) to live with when the injury is known and well documented, such as mine. There is no question that the injury occurred. There is no question as to how much of the brain was involved. It was the entire organ. The disruption was universal. I have to say that this likely does contribute to my cavalier attitude. Still, I have not reconnected with this body completely. I have also stopped trying.

    This daily mantra is one of acceptance, though, as much as complaint. Yes, I am alive. Yes, I am still connected to this body and its "life." Yes, I feel its little pains and hear its petty little complaints. If I grunt first thing, though, I notice that I grunt slightly less later. <shrug> I refer to this body as "I" just like I should. ;-) I have a better grasp on the balance between "I, the consciousness" and "I, the body."

    So, get the grunting out of the way. Make a universal complaint against all of the little papercuts that will inevitably happen as the day wears on. Then move on with them.