O Happy Day
Unshelled gratitude
“Let the negative noise exist so it can dissipate, and then listen to the truth that comes through.”
That’s what I keep telling myself these days as I navigate through the uncharted territories of my psyche. Non-depression didn’t make me coin-flip jubilant, extroverted, or walking around the house singing. Memories of that type of happiness peek around corners now and there, here and then, until they drift away with a chin nod and a slight smile. I was once that delighted. Burst-into-song cheerful. No one or thing could get me down financial scrimping notwithstanding. Time was, I knew everything would somehow be fine, and I could clap along, feeling like a room without a roof[1].
Then came the darkness, and the sunshine went away, my hot air balloon collapsed onto the mucky ground, shredded beyond repair. Or so I thought. In the back of my head, I heard Jerry Lewis say that, even though he was addicted to Percocet, the fentanyl of its era, he didn’t want psychiatric help, afraid if he fixed all that was wrong with him, he’d lose his funny. I don’t know if he ever got his head shrunk, as he called it, managed to disengage from his personal monkey, or if I just outgrew slapstick’s appeal, but yeah, I stopped finding him funny somewhere along the way.
Cassandra let me down there; I shoulda seen it as a warning, but I figured I was too small potatoes, too inconsequential to have the same concerns as someone like the great (and rich and famous) Jerry Lewis. After all, the man personified talent.
But damned if’n that weren’t pretty much exactly what done did happen. After my family imploded and I started recognizing who/what I was and all that I’d not only lived through but had somehow managed to bulldoze over, I fell apart. And honestly, it really didn’t make any sense.
I mean, I’d spent a whole lifetime functioning like a real person despite my non-self-esteem or confidence. I pushed through the years without anyone the wiser. Raised a genius on a middlin’ intellect. Abetted a former prodigy through quasi-stardom and the academic career of his dreams. Provided aid, comfort, and bedding to three total strangers while they finished growing up. Built a company, lost more than a handful of cats, did our taxes by myself—a Herculean feat considering how much the number nine fought me every step of the way. Baked car-loads of cookies and Congo bars and bourbon balls. Sent homemade fudge to my sister-in-law in Israel every single year. In other words, I was a mensch, a fully operational human being.
Until Joshua sounded his horn, Jericho’s wall came tumblin’ down, and I nose dove into hellish despair and self-destruction. O, the woe, o the trauma, o the residual post-purge angst and physical pain. Seemed to me shaking off all that melancholy shoulda left me so mentally, emo-psychologically, and physically healthy it’d be hard to look at my shininess.
Et to, dumbasfuck?
So imagine my current state of mind when I stand up from… well, any seat… and I don’t have to repress a scream, a profanity, an elaborate body realignment.
Proteolytic enzymes.
That’s right: my corporeal mass is actively healing itself, thanks to proteolytic enzymes, casually suggested by my Sis-atop-the-mountaintop. Did she tell me about them before and I forgot? Uh, gee, is water wet? But that was then, and this is, remarkably, quite now.
Half-a-month on Heal ‘n Soothe by… whoever puts it out… I have to remind myself it’s okay to just stand up from the commode. That’s a whoa! experience after so many years of steeling myself to non-yowl whenever I have to lift my ass.
Thank you, enzymes.
I’m almost non-limping, too, and my constant spasmodic companion has switched from Electro Dancing to a simple jig. Dare I imagine it’ll sit out a tune or two at some point? Hey, a person can dream, can’t they?
Another noteworthy agony-lack side effect: I can, at long last, sustain propitious ruminations. Yahoo!
See, when a someone—like, say, me—uses up most of their (my) spoons trying to fleshlily negotiate time and space, positive mantras and manifestations are make-believe dream—nothing more than wishes (and a wish is just a dream you wish would come true)[2]. Reflecting from the distance of days-amounting-to-nearly-over-a-full-week without pre-planning every bed turn, every scrambled-egg intention, every two-stairs-down-to-outside adventure, it’s clear why I came to view the universe-on-speed-dial I had once-upon-a-time as a series of lucky coincidences. Pain exploits a hellova lot more energy than I gave it credit for. Mayhaps my family-implosion angst provoked those three serious falls and that Cheez Whiz episode (now definitively diagnosed as either-a-stroke-or-possibly-something-else), but I owe my inability to sit-in-positivity—much less hitch-my-psyche-to-the cosmos—to their combined lingering aftereffects.
Which lingers less and less every day. Thanks, proteolytics.
I once worked with a nurse practitioner who told her obese patients, “Stop worrying about exercise right now. When you modify your eating habits and lose some weight, you’ll find you naturally want to move more. One thing at a time.”
So as I inch back toward easy movement, I can tell myself the negativity buzzing my thought stream come sundown is merely creativity working its way from one polarity to another. Sure I realized that before, but inflammation and spasms impeded psychic communication. Now when I wake up in the morning, I can project non-disability. I can imagine ease, comfort, and prosperity. Soon, I’ll have that connection even after the sun goes down every day.
Thank you, Mountain-top Sis, thank you Infinite Connection, thank you Proteolytic Enzymes!
[1] “Happy” from G I R L by Pharrel Williams for Despicable Me 2, a 2013 film produced by Illuminations Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures.
[2] “The Puppy Song” from the album Harry by Harry Nilsson, 1969.