September. I didn’t post. One lonely draft on a list abandoned in the before. It doesn’t say much, just a nod to the difficulties of healing. It’s been three months, but pick up there still struggling with grief and loss experienced in May and then June when I passed out and injured my body as well as my soul.

I’ve been even more concerned with healing in the days since. Healing is hard. What do I say? I’ve been working at healing most of my life and if I was any good at it, I’d be in a different place than I am now. But healing, I see is priorities. Do I care for my body or my mind? Both hurt and need care, but my current plan, or perhaps current actions taken towards health don’t line the two up very well.

Three times this week, I caught myself telling an old story. Funny? I’m not sure. I do use humour at times to cope, but this, I think, is more irony. “If you show me a rock and hard place, I’ll find the crack and dive in.” It speaks to my frustration. And maybe my strength. I don’t know how or why, but life often managed to leave me wedged between; where others had to face the rock or hard place in more clear cut ways, I was forced to deal with both and the weight of the crack and all it contained. My attempt at humour still held too much complaint. I struggled with the weight of things I carried, unsure why or how I managed it. And, if I am honest, have a ridiculous ability to find life there.

Stubborn. Scottish. I acknowledge it now. A culture I don’t know and tried to resist. “You are what your grandfather was,” my dad would say determined I would own it. I heard them speak so strongly of their home and people growing up. Scottish. They seemed to have so much more strength than I. They lived through wars and tough things, their memories of it clear and strong. They knew the names and dates and histories of kings and queens and clans. The clans were important, more so than kings. That was my thought. Your name, your clan, your family and connections. The occasional story of a black sheep, an uncle a generation or two from me, sent here by family. His wife and any children held behind. He was abusive I think. Their solution sharp and final, a good surgical cut. It frightened me that people could do that to someone, so literally cut them off from their family. I didn’t know I may wish that myself through divorce in later years. But cutting off, I couldn’t do. I lean to others needs and still do.

I’m good at waiting, but don’t believe patience is a strong point. I’d laugh and tell people I’m not patient, just stubborn. And that has carried me through the past few months. I’m not sure stubborn counts as healing. But it’s held on and kept me going through days of 8/10 pain and learning to read the pain scale in Lego faces my son sent to me. Acknowledging feeling, listening to my body, vehemently disagreeing with it at times and coming out worse for it at the end. Learning to listen and cut life to bare minimum. Work 6 hours come home and sleep. Hydrate. Eat a little. Hydrate more. And sleep. Some days that’s all I did and woke less sore but frustrated that’s what my body demanded of me. It’s hard to be kind to myself when it remains so foreign. Still untangling the years of fear when sick, facing anger, insults and reprimands that taught me to punish myself internally for doing wrong. It isn’t wrong to heal. Not even when I take far too long. Healing is a process of listening and learning to give or to accept, maybe to receive what is needed to restore.

For the first time in life, the last few years have allowed space to talk to my doctor and slowly accept that medications may help. I am afraid of drugs, even prescription ones. It’s a habit, this fear. The first few times I had to take some came with the anger and judgement and disgust. I had to do it – thyroid out, medication required. But I ‘knew’ it was wrong. Wrong to help my body live. Wrong to cost money to do it. Healing requires purging the old ways, old thoughts, old words and judgements followed. Healing it seems is about learning to relax. To allow. To accept. To trust. To interact.

I feel bad being quiet here for several months. Even this post, had to wait. I found it lingering from the start of November, and it was recognizing a beginning in September, early fall. The time my EI was running out and I knew I wasn’t ready to pull the full weight. I’m still not there. Hovering just below. But I’m determined, perhaps that Scottish trait again. I am determined to get there, and will in the end.

Healing is a journey, at times without a map. I guess I just keep following the trail and see what it will bring.

Life. Always a journey.