so sayeth the indigo girls
An indigo girls quote:
"But my words are paper tigers
no match for the predator of pain inside her"
I know they're not talking about physical pain there, in that song, and sometimes the words resound in me in the way they're meant to--talking about love and loneliness. But today, they resounded around my spine, because, HOLY FUCKING GIBBERLING CHRIST ON A SIDEWAYS CHAINSAW, OW. OUCH. O-fucking-U-sonofabitching-C-killmenow-H. Yes, the sort of pain that would have had me in tears in the emergency room just a few short years ago. But now I'm used to it--USED to it!--enough that I didn't cry, and was able to go on a bike ride with my family through Payne's Prairie, for a little while, anyway. I had to go back to the car before everyone else, but I managed for a while. It was a pretty enough trail to be distracting, though of course it would obviously have been nicer without the sharks chewing up my spinal cord. My parents bought rum and coke after so I could anaesthetize, which I thought was nice of them. It helped a little, though I can't drink very much because of acid reflux. Still, a kind gesture.
So pain aside, it was a nice day. Usually it's easier to put the pain aside, since it's not usually as hellish as it was today. And usually when it IS hellish, I'm at home and not attempting to ride a bicycle for the first time in years. Even so, a nice day out in the world and not cloistered in my office hiding from everything. It's a trade-off, I guess.
"But my words are paper tigers
no match for the predator of pain inside her"
I know they're not talking about physical pain there, in that song, and sometimes the words resound in me in the way they're meant to--talking about love and loneliness. But today, they resounded around my spine, because, HOLY FUCKING GIBBERLING CHRIST ON A SIDEWAYS CHAINSAW, OW. OUCH. O-fucking-U-sonofabitching-C-killmenow-H. Yes, the sort of pain that would have had me in tears in the emergency room just a few short years ago. But now I'm used to it--USED to it!--enough that I didn't cry, and was able to go on a bike ride with my family through Payne's Prairie, for a little while, anyway. I had to go back to the car before everyone else, but I managed for a while. It was a pretty enough trail to be distracting, though of course it would obviously have been nicer without the sharks chewing up my spinal cord. My parents bought rum and coke after so I could anaesthetize, which I thought was nice of them. It helped a little, though I can't drink very much because of acid reflux. Still, a kind gesture.
So pain aside, it was a nice day. Usually it's easier to put the pain aside, since it's not usually as hellish as it was today. And usually when it IS hellish, I'm at home and not attempting to ride a bicycle for the first time in years. Even so, a nice day out in the world and not cloistered in my office hiding from everything. It's a trade-off, I guess.