When mono becomes a gift.
Angry. I was so angry. How could I get mono? Scientifically, yes. But in my reality, no. I have no time for mono, for slowing down my busy life schedule. Then gradually, my body became a crumbling weak mess which I could no longer manipulate and control as I was used to doing. I always chose how I ran it - it obeyed me. The one thing in life I could dictate and alter as I pleased. Gone.
Spending more time in a horizontal position, at the mercy of whoever would be handing me my next popsicle to ease my swollen throat and lymph nodes, I was shown my fragility. Daily I had grown accustomed to my schedule of twelve hour nursing shifts as a critical care nurse, hours of school work in earning my next degree, and the mix of running my world with cleaning, meetings, and exercising my body. All of that has come to a standstill as my body has grown weaker and increased in pain. And now my daily schedule looks much different. It's now filled with little movement and very few words due to the exhaustion and pain. This, you could imagine, has not been easy for me to digest.
I've been through an array of thoughts and emotions. Disappointed, depressed, frustrated, angry, bored, apathetic, hopeless, lonely, guilt-ridden. But now, through my obligation to stillness and nothingness, I am beginning to see that I have been stressing and working and rushing from event to event in my life.. and for what? Placing my energy in these "things" that I'm trying to build.. instead of in myself.. the person I want to build. I've been seeking these accomplishments. Striving for perfection and completion. All the while, missing the beauty of the journey because of the toppling weight and high standard I've placed upon these things in life. Not to say they're not important or worth while endeavors.. But I have grossly misplaced their priority. I have shuffled my own well-being deep beneath the objectivity of success and productivity. With mono, I have no choice but to realign my heart and mind to that which truly matters in life.
In the slowness and quietness of my days, I have more time than I would have wished to just THINK. To watch. I watch the wind move leaves and limbs on the trees outside. I feel its soft, cool touch graze my cheek from the window as I sit in my dad’s chair. It’s amazing the simple beauties of creation that I have become so in tuned with and thankful for during this time. And I wonder.. why did any of those obligations in my life matter so much to me? Why did I feel like I had to be plugged into so much in order to feel value and important? Did I.. could I.. have intrinsic value and worth.. simply for the fact that I exist. Is humanness alone, the act of being alive, enough to give a person significance? Do we need any external accomplishment or person or object to increase our worth?
The existential quality of humans alone is more than enough to give each soul purpose, value, and significance. Every person - regardless of what they are doing or saying or changing or accomplishing - has worth - intrinsic, whole and full worth - completely set apart from any other piece in life.Â
So if this is true.. then me.. just me.. laying here, doing nothing but writing and sleeping and reading.. not out saving lives or writing a twenty page research paper or training for a marathon or having an intentional interaction with another person.. myself alone has significance. I have worth and purpose and value - intrinsically - for the fact that I exist with the breath in my lungs and beat of my heart and thoughts in my head and a soul spirit residing within me.
So thank you mono. Thank you for striping away my external parts - of work and accomplishments and successes and goals - of relationships and items I own and the way I look.  Thank you for taking away my abilities and energy. Thank you for ridding me of my voice and my movement. For without this, I am not sure I would have discovered these eternal truths that may just save me from a path I was unaware I was traveling down. I have wasted far too much life under a weight I didn’t need to bear, a hindering burden I’ve placed on my own shoulders. But this too, had a purpose of its own. I suppose I’m the type of person that needed to be laid down, quite literally, for months in order to have the weight lifted from my shoulders and blinders removed from my eyes. There is always room for growth, much of the time in areas we didn’t realize we needed it. And the gift of mono has given me just that.. space, quietness, solidarity - in which to bloom.Â
Perspective. Always perspective.
vaporwave
blakekathryn
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
2087
ellievsbear