Yesterday I had yet another fall in the kitchen and in the process I twisted my ankle. It was hurting ans slightly swollen. Kevin went to the gas station ofr a bag of ice. I iced my foot, and then used the leftover ice to have a drink with Kevin. It hurt all right, but not enough so I'd take pain meds. The physical pain was actually something I welcomed whole-heartedly. As a friend put it: "Physical pain if bad enough can fill up all the spaces in your soul", not leaving space for any other kind of pain. And for the first time in about two weeks, I slept well. Well, as well as I normally sleep.
This morning, however, I had trouble walking and gave up on the idea all together after dropping the kids off at various schools and going to my meeting at work. I came home and threw myself on the bed, with music playing at maximum volume (good thing we don't have immediate neighbors home during the day) and I did... nothing. Just working on my soul. On traumatic memories. On survivor's guilt. On my reasons for longing for physical pain. On the urge to further injure myself--my coping mechanism for so many years.
Then the kids started to come in, I started to get distracted with life outside my own head, and that did good to me. Keeping busy is good. But by teh time Kevin got home, I couldn't stand longer than a few seconds, so Kevin took charge and had my ankle and foot checked out. It's nothing really serious: just a pulled muscle, possibly tendonitis. Nothing that a bunch of overpriced over-the-counter medication can't heal in a week or two. I hope for the one week variant: I need my foot all functional on February 15th!
Till then... I'm working on piecing my soul back together.
