Power

Just under my heart in the middle of my torso was the organ that controlled my power.  Now there is this gaping hole as though someone punched a fist through me.  And every now and then my breath stutters and catches as though it can not quite make the jump across the empty space.

At first I thought my power organ was malfunctioning, I felt so weak.  But then I realised it was gone and since I didn’t wake up in an ice bath with a note saying it was missing…. and I didn’t donate it, someone must’ve stolen it.

When you have the ability to generate power, you take it for granted.  It is not until you feel powerless that you realise the huge loss.  You get power from little things, from working or studying and feeling useful, from making decisions for yourself, no matter how small, from feeling beautiful, or at least deciding to do something about it when you don’t, from being self-reliant, completely independent and from being you, being who you are meant to be whatever that is.

If you are chronically ill, those power sources are no longer an option.  And in fact you deplete your power in much bigger increments, because you are completely reliant on others, to clean, to change your bed, to shop, to go to the doctor, sometimes even to bathe.  When you cannot choose to simply get up and make breakfast, when you hurt yourself making toast, you lose a lot of that sense of power.

I bleed power; it seeps from me in an ever-flowing torrent.  No more can I work or study to feel useful and powerful.  No more can I exercise, get my hair cut and dyed, or even apply makeup to feel beautiful.  No more can I look after myself, do anything without consulting somebody and developing a strategic plan to achieve the smallest goal.  And no more do I feel like me, because I am trapped inside, kept hostage, diluted and whispering from eons away.  I can barely remember me.

So I am looking for a power organ donor.  I’m not sure I’ll make it without one.

Bitter Zzzzz

The flames of an impotent rage are burning in my stomach, futile and frustrating.  An ache cloys in the hollow of my throat making my hands flutter uselessly to my neck as though warding off danger.

It is the powerlessness that fuels this fire.  The sense that I cannot affect anything, not even my ability to sleep or stand.  An evil snivelling greedy intruder insomnia has slithered into my house and gorged on my sleep leaving me starving.  And I cannot find the power or control to hold my muscles into any practised positions, so my mind throws itself uselessly against the antagonism this intruder has enveloped me in.

And then a woman turns up, for an appointment I had cancelled.  And she is sent straight upstairs to me in spite of my vocal insistence that she not be.  She too is an employee of the department of ‘no listening’.  And as I try to corral my rebellious thoughts and coerce my tongue into something coherent she talks at me and over me, wasting my greatly depleted energy on repeat.  It has turns my insides burning amber with an impotent fire storm of rage that cannot be quelled.

I have no power.  There are no choices to be made.  And as my friends face their struggles with attempts at being Zen, I find little to be thankful for.  I want to go back to the days before the intruder came when although I was exhausted beyond comprehension, I could sleep.  Heavy drunken sleep, but sleep nonetheless.  Now I flail uselessly about growling and stomping like a toddler learning to master their motor skills.

In the days before he gorged on my sleep, I could at least be thankful for the painful awareness that came with consciousness.  Today I find nothing to be thankful for. 

I am alive, I should be thankful for that.  And maybe tomorrow I can be.  If only that bastard intruder would leave me some sleep scraps, even crumbs.  Then I promise to be thankful.

Freedom

I throw myself backwards and my breath catches in my throat with the possibility I may have misjudged the moment.  And then the current hits, lifting me from my hips and trailing my legs out behind me.  The sensation is freedom, gorgeous weightless drifting freedom.

Ever since I was a child I have dreamt of flying this way, by simply flinging myself backwards into an air current and moving my limbs in lazy fluid star jumps to keep the momentum going.  Sadly this dream doesn’t visit me as often these days, more often I dream of running or walking effortlessly without concentration. 

And netball, I dream of playing.  There is this beautiful moment when a team of good players syncs.  There is no thought required to move around and anticipate each other before breaking and passing.  It is all instinct and trust.  I dream of that moment and when I take a pass and turn and throw in a graceful and easy movement it seems predestined and choreographed and yet each sequence and play is spontaneous.

One day, I hope that I will not have to be so conscious and aware of the mechanisms of my body and that walking will be effortless.  But for now my brain seems to send jumbled messages to my muscles, and like a game of Chinese whispers they respond in increasingly diluted ways.  So I need to focus with all of my grey matter to try and manipulate every tendon and ligament into behaving in a manner that will at least keep me mostly upright.

Sometimes I am successful and yet I have to always be in the moment, I cannot take a step without be completely switched on.  Perhaps I missed my calling as a project manager, because I have become startlingly efficient at developing a strategic plan for simply moving from one room to the next without injuring myself gravely.

So these days I dream of a different type of freedom.  Freedom from the need to be so aware of my body in every second of the day, freedom to walk for more than a few metres without having to concentrate on my foot falls and freedom to simply run an errand or catch up with a friend without having to develop a twelve page, two hundred point strategic plan to cover all possible outcomes.

I dream of freedom.