My Bed, My Brace, & My Burden

There are many days I rarely leave my bed. In the midst of the good and the bad, it has become my place - my place of peace, my place of pity; the place I want to be most on the good days and least on the bad. I begrudge my bed when I have no choice but to be here and delight in it when I am able to choose it of my own cognition.

On days like today, it is with apathy that I am here typing. My body is as it always is, sluggish and thick, and I fantasize there is someone who will soon bring me coffee. But there is no one so I pop a couple Excedrin with the bottled water on my nightstand knowing the caffeine injection will shortly give me a gust. Then will I be able to rise from my bed and hobble my way down the stairs to the coffee pot or the Klondikes or the new scenery. What I want most is to shower, but it is too much too soon and so I sit in my stink until my body gives me the okay to exert the energy a shower requires.

For too long, I can't sit without my brace. As I tried exercising without a therapist and tried rinsing out my tub without a clue, I sat last Thursday without my brace. Feeling strong, feeling the pain scale of nine reduced to a five, I wanted to be ... me. The me I once was, active, strong, but the brace that was such a blessing and brought me such joy is now a noose around my neck; a monkey on my back, and I spent three days back up the scale at nine.

I am impatient. I want to be free of it. I want to be free of this body that is such a contradiction to my mind. I want to run and dance and walk with grace. I want to speak my mind at the time I want to speak it, to free the imprisoned words and memories held without ransom behind some invisible shroud. I want my friends to remember who I am, to remember I exist, or I want to make new ones in a world I haven't seen for awhile. I want to work and play and write and learn. I want to care about something, and I really, really want to take a shower.