Revelations

As if I had wings, I dove off the numbness and fell into the fires of a World unknown and unpredictable, a passage I had to survive for any hopes of recovery. For me it’s much like the pot of gold at the end of a very tumultuous and grueling rainbow. The past few months, my body has been experiencing a fierce revolution, my cells clinging to the very poison that made the last nineteen years of chronic pain and illness tolerable. I started slowly decreasing the amount of the contamination that had not only affected my entire body, but had also seeped into my mind and spirit. There is no part of my life that has gone untouched, not one moment of nineteen years absent from their influence. Deciding to get off my narcotics was not easy; it began more as an epiphany.

Topsail Beach, September 1-8: My mother, a friend and I were staying in a condo right on the beach. With everything on the island on stilts, I rarely made the long decent down to the beach. I would just hang out on the deck and enjoy the view. This year, a surprising thing happened. I went down to the beach every day, and I even had the strength in my lungs to climb the steep stairs back up to the condo. Instead of being afraid of what I might encounter in the ocean, I dove in, allowing the swells to knock into my back and splash over my head, relishing the taste of salt in my mouth and the sting of it in my eyes. I boogie boarded, riding the waves from their highest swells until I felt the crunch of broken shells under my belly. I walked the beach alone, leaving more footprints than I had in the last nineteen years.

There was a presence with me the whole time, almost a long-removed shadow. She was my courage, my sense of adventure, my hope. She was ME, nineteen years ago before the chronic pain and illness led me to a life of near-absolute numbness from the narcotics I was kept on by reputable doctors for real pain.  Unfortunately, I lost that ME over the course of all the hospitalizations, all the surgeries, all the pain, and especially all the drugs. Seeing that glimpse of her gave me an idea, and ultimately the determination and courage to carry it through.

I burst into the condo one afternoon and made a declaration to my mom and dear friend.

“I saw Jessica, and I want her back. I’m going to get off my narcotics and hopefully she’ll return, only with the wisdom of the last 19 years.”

To be continued....