Caring, the ultimate Achilles Heel

I always have known people who were too sensitive for their own good.  Often these people realise that caring about something gives another human being the ability to hurt them and they therefore search for methods by which to 'shut down' their instinctive compassion or love.  I understood but fought against that impulse tooth and nail as I believed that living WAS caring and that shutting down emotionally and spiritually was tantamount to death in life.

For two decades now, I have been in close proximity to some one who is dedicated to a programme of belittling, ridiculing and making access to anything that matters to me as difficult as possible.  It is not a new strategy by any means but in the past, I distanced myself as quickly as possible from any person with those tendencies.  It obviously is motivated by jealousy and insecurity, a sort of 'dog in the manger' mentality.

Living in constant severe pain, however, I realise that it is only if I actually continue to CARE about things that I can continue to exist.  I need a reason to continue to struggle against the pain, to attempt to overcome it, to carry on.  My cats are seven years old.  My pain levels have been increasing recently to a point that is almost unbearable.  I would not abandon them, however.  It may appear ridiculous or trivial to some people but THEY are the primary reason why I continue to live.  Seriously. 

When I was younger, I was less responsible.  i do have regrets about that, as much as I try to believe that regrets are pointless.  What I have promised myself, however, is that I will do my best to be responsibile NOW for every creature who depends upon me for his/her survival. 

My daughter is almost 21.  She was my primary reason for making certain that the pain did not defeat me until she went off to University and essentially became independent.  I seldom see her now. 

The dynamics of chronic pain are complex.  I wrote a paper on it once.  I have searched for methods by which to mitigiate its effects on my life and my soul.  Gaming was one of those and to some extents still is, especially in the middle of the night when I am too exhausted to do anything truly meaningful but cannot sleep.  I think I would have gone mad if I hadn't discovered games.

Before I became disabled, I walked on a daily basis.  I explored the cities in which I lived.  I walked to the most beautiful place I could find within the radius of a mile or so and spent time there each day.  When we lived in Centre City, that place was an old cemetary.    I have loved graveyards since I was a child.  I did not find the presence of the dead frightening or off-putting.  I basically believed that they were sleeping, which is an extremely peaceful activity.  I did not feel as though I were alone, but at the same time, I felt I was surrounded by a community of people from the past who were at peace in one way or another.  The primary reason I loved the cemetary in Centre City, however, had nothing to do with the dead.  It was rather the grand old trees that had grown to immense heights and girth over the decades.  When the sun began to set, hordes of tiny bats would fly out of the trees and fill the air.  I never feared bats either.  I rather like them.  (Used to keep mice and birds as pets, so why would I not like a creature who was essentially a mouse with tiny wings?)

If any one read these posts, I probably would not write in this fashion.  I would not bare my reality to this extent.  It is a sort of grim consolation to know that no one reads half the stuff I write because I needn't hide behind some sort of vestigial sense of pride or ego.

People make fun of Facebook and the trivial stuff that users post there, but I have discovered that a large segment of the Facebook population is in the same situation as I, living either with severe chronic pain or osme life-threatening disease.  It makes me more tolerant towards the often silly status updates I see.  Basically when some one posts a photograph of his/her solitary dinner, or of a job he/she completed recently, I see it as a declaration of sorts:  'I exist.  I am here.  If you cut me, I bleed.  I have survived another day.'

I had a very dear friend named Ernst.  I met him in Manhattan when I was teaching a class in German Mythology.  He was German, although born in the States during the Second World War.  His childhood was filled with nasty encounters, mainly with Jewish-American kids who blamed him personally for Hitler's policies.  He basically was taught in school and by society that German heritage was shameful or evil.  When he grew older, he decided he wanted to embrace his heritage and thus came to me.  Over the years, he became a guardian angel of sorts both to me and to Freya.  He sent us parcels each week.  He sent books, sweets and necessities.  He was more like family than my own family.

He died a few years ago but in the years that preceded his death, he spoke often of how he wished to die at home and how he would not want to survive his cats.   He had some serious chronic health problems but I still was shocked by his death. 

As when any close friend or family member dies, I was angry and felt a bit betrayed that he had not made me aware of all the facts.  I felt I ought to have been able to prevent his death somehow, to have intervened.  But how?  To have sent him to hospital against his will?  He died in the fashion and at the time when he wished to die basically.  That was his right.  Sometimes now, I think about that and how I am beginning to feel the same way.  I don't think I want to outlive my cats.  Understand this:  were I not in pain all the time, were I able to walk, were I able to read properly, and even, if I had a partner who needed me and would be bereft were I to die,  I would NOT think this way.  None of that being the case, however, I begin to see death as a release from everything that imprisons me and tortures me.   I think I have at least five more years to endure though for the sake of the Putti.  Probably better for my daughter as well if she finishes University and embarks upon her chosen career first.

Who knows?  Perhaps a miracle will occur and there will be a way to live without this crippling pain.  I do believe that there is a Divine Being and that miracles and divine intervention is possible but I somehow cannot comprehend WHY any Divine Being would involve itself in our petty little lives.  When people claim that God is on their side in a war, it is nothing more than political propaganda.  I cannot imagne any truly Divine Being being other than impartial.  Bad things happen to good people not because they are being punished by God but because God maintains a policy of non-intervention in our affairs.  Full stop.