Meningitis, Take Two
It is happening again. The achey back, joints, the headaches… the meningitis. That blip in my past which took me really all these past three years to deal with, is once again resurfacing. Here I sit, in fear, wondering why. Wondering what. All the questions unanswered by doctors, how it happened, how to avoid it, when or why it would come back… and it is back. Right as I feel like I’ve gotten my life in order as well. I suppose I had some wrong impression of order. Jobs finally solidified, a healthy housing situation I love, seeking out yoga teachers once more, dancing in parades and seeking out auditions… why now.
If things happen again I suppose we missed something the first time. Some lesson to be learned did not solidify in my practices. If I reflect on the weeks leading up to this, I was stressed. I was compromising my daily intake level of activity for a future expectation of harmony… helping out more people than my body and mind could handle with the hope that it would die down in the coming weeks. I am learning more and more that I can not compromise even a moment of the present for the future. The future just doesn’t exist. It is the present and only the present again and again and again.
Not only that, but the future won’t exist in a manner harmonious with you if you are not living in the present how you might in the future. All talk about putting your head down and getting it done, or working hard now for a future reward… it may work for others, but that does not work for me. I think living that way slowly kills pieces of yourself even if you think it works for you.
It is all a marathon, not a series of sprints.
How you spend your day is how you spend your life.
I just have a health ailment that drives that realization into me more than others do.
And it SUCKS. Gosh it sucks, that I can’t eat whatever I want or go out as much as I want or use up all my energy reserves in new projects as much as I want. And I can cry about it, and I have. Cried about a longing for a past endless energetic version of myself that was not crippled by a lurking meningitis. Cried for bodily freedom.
But if I think more into that, my energy has always depleted me. My sprinting approach to life has always left me bed-ridden. Has left me at the party, but voiceless. Has brought me to the top of the mountain, but with tendonitis and no thermals.
So now I must learn my lesson once more. But how to make it stick this time. Realizations thus far include…
*Health is an every day every moment practice… it is a state of mind… it is a calm approach to life… it is a commitment to serenity and the pace you can sustain.
*Take your time to make some time.
*Learn to listen to YOUR needs over the requests of others, for if you do not you will not be able to be there for others in the end. Learn that this is not selfish.
*There is ALWAYS more time. Rid of the illusion of time… the fear of time… the limits of the illusion of time and accompanying fear
I hope to reach the day where I appreciate meningitis as my relentless check on trueness to self.