When Love Is Enough

I awoke this morning with an aching emptiness, as I knew this was a day that I was going to take a much harder look at myself, without the crutch of abusive substances.

What's been a little disturbing lately is my glass of wine in late afternoon, after my day is pretty much done. It's never been a problem, nor even a daily habit, but I've noticed this past week or so that the time I pour it has been inching up by a half-hour or so, and yesterday I poured a small amount at about 2:30 p.m. instead of my usual 4 p.m. or after.

While my intake has remained the same, this earlier start is scaring me, as it should, and when I went to sleep last night, I promised myself that today, no matter how well I'd be able to resist the clutches of pain medication, smoking and now wine, I would at least take a hard look at my feelings, and the best mirrors I've got are my private journal and this blog.

What's so interesting about these promises we make to ourselves is that most of the time they're half-hearted, something we say to make ourselves feel better for the moment, but never really put into action. But then there are those occasions when we know we mean it, and that's when life can get scary indeed.

Even before I began journal writing today, my anxiety level was up, almost as a type of wall to prevent me from this little trip into the unknown. But I stuck to my guns, made a cup of coffee, watched the last few minutes of a Sopranos rerun (no matter how bad things are, I have to see what Tony is up to), did not light up a smoke, and began writing.

I wish I could say that some startling insight was uncovered, but instead, what became as plain as day was that the pain in my jaw is still holding on with a fierce grip, and I literally felt sadness wash over me like a wave.

Somehow, in recent months, I've been distracted from the pain by family drama, by new freelance writing assignments, by trips to the shore to help my parents, and, of course, by pain medication.

When I told my doctor last week that I was taking way too much Vicodin, he switched me to MSContin, which is morphine sulphate in pill form. While that may somehow sound more dangerous in terms of addiction, for me it's a better choice in that I actually take less medication yet get better pain control. And I don't get the mood lift I was getting from the Vicodin, which, to be honest, is something I've come to miss.

With MSContin, the medication is released slowly over the course of 8 hours, so there's no rush, and therefore no quick and easy escape from the pain and sadness of my condition.

When I just sat with my feelings this morning, not having any deadlines looming or any particular place to be, there was a stillness there, a lack of motivation of any kind, which was in such stark contrast to just yesterday morning, when I felt like I had the world on a string, making all kinds of plans for a type of playday as a reward for meeting a big deadline--first to ride my bike, then to paint at my studio.

Those plans changed, of course, when I took that first sip of wine at 2:30, and interest in anything else simply and quickly waned. I cursed my behavior, vowing to do better today, and indeed I have. I've had one dose of medication and one cigarette, and it's now nearing 2 p.m. And I've made plans to meet a friend in about a half-hour.

But the pain in my face has me reaching--that feeling of wanting to grab something, anything, that will make me feel better, that will quell the loneliness that comes with chronic pain and constant disappointment.

At this particular moment, I suppose I need to just have faith, not in God, per se, but in the realization that in resisting the reach, I will feel better overall--maybe not now, but perhaps tomorrow, or the next day. That's hard to see in the moments of deep sorrow or wrenching pain, or in the throes of an addiction spell. When the latter occurs, it feels like every cell in my body is screaming for relief, and turning a deaf ear for the five minutes or so it takes for a craving to pass can feel like a lifetime.

I talked to a friend about faith earlier today, and I can see that I haven't lost it--it's just changed shape. When I pray now, I don't use the word God anymore, as it's attached to just too much baggage from my Catholic upbringing.

I pray to the "Universal Spirit" instead, which when I shorten it to the letters "U" and "S," spells "us." And that's something I can get with indeed.

All this misery has made me feel the love of others and within myself in ways I never have before, and as I said to my friend this morning, in terms of faith, love is enough. I don't need to pray to some great being in the sky, but I do need to pray to whatever the mysterious source is of all this deep compassion. When I pray to this universal spirit of love, I feel it, and I feel it for me in particular.

That's new.


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The Wait Is Over

It occurred to me the other night that for years now, I've been running a tally of all the unfortunate events that have occurred during my lifetime--a tally that has often left me feeling overwhelmed and bewildered, even bitter and jealous towards those who seem to have had such an easier time of it.

But you know what? I'm sick of feeling that way. While lying in bed that night, I suddenly felt that yes, it's true that I've suffered in ways that most people would consider torture, but I also felt that it's all been quite an extraordinary journey in terms of raw life experience.

For reasons I don't fully understand, there's been a sense of shame attached to it, and I see now that I still carry secrets, even after all this time. And in my subconscious mind, these secrets are the proof that at my core, I don't really deserve to be walking around among the masses feeling good and healthy. I'm a fraud, and all this shitty stuff that has happened is because of that--not because I'm a fraud necessarily, but because of what I'm hiding.

But then it hit me: Having survived all of these disasters has certainly made for an extraordinary life, and when I look at it alongside my God-given gift of communication, I can see quite clearly that I'm not really doing anything with it.

On the one hand, there is this all this extreme life experience, and on the other are these communication skills that I've been developing for years. Whether they're skills in writing or painting or music doesn't really matter; it's what they've all added up to that counts--an ability to communicate on various levels with various tools, and I'm not using them to their fullest.

When I used to write songs, I would always incorporate my life experience into the work, even if the songs were somewhat fictional. But when physical pain took over my mind and body, I simply couldn't find the words or the melodies anymore that could express what I was going through. It was that bad.

Painting became an easier outlet, but at some point, my life and my art began to part ways, and I began to wait for that golden day when I'd finally feel better, when the pain in my jaw and face and abdomen would be gone, and then I'd be able to make use of my talents. Only then would I be able to fully enjoy them and make sense of all this, as if 20/20 hindsight were the only valid lens to look through.

But you know what? That painless day may never come. I must face the fact that I've been in pain for nearly a decade now, fighting it every inch of the way--seeking out every resource, every treatment, every doctor I thought might help--and while I've improved in some ways, the suffering on certain days can be as bad as it ever was.

I see now I'm not living an integrated life. While I've been able to accept the darkness in my soul and in my history for the most part, I haven't been able to accept the dark truth that life can be grossly unfair, and when our bodies fail, it can be terrifying...and enraging.

But there's another truth here, which is that no matter what shape we're in, physically or mentally, we deserve to be loved, and we particularly deserve to love ourselves just as we are.

I thought that I'd accepted all this, but the other night it was an a-ha moment indeed to see how I've just been waiting to come alive again. And waiting. And waiting.

The wait is over.