pain=gain...eventually

patience is a virtue that most of us don't acquire until well into adulthood, if then. i have to say that i am still not the most patient of people. put me in traffic, or in a line that i can move along, and patience retreats from me at a rapid clip. but as i have gotten older, i have started to slow down a bit and see the big picture...at least sometimes i see it. and sometimes i see it, but i just can't accept what i see. result: i fruitlessly rail against the world. the result is as
you 'd expect: nothing changes. the temperature is still the same, the sun is still in the sky, the mail is still delivered and the world moves on.

this summer could have been a disaster emotionally and physically had i not recognized the bad karma i had brought upon myself, and then just decided not to fight it. my agonizing, awkward split with my mother could be argued in a lot of ways. i could spend a lot of time defending my actions and giving my side. but immediately i realized that despite my belief (even now) that i was correct, i probably should have shown a little more patience. however, in the long run i think the higher powers lined up the conflict. it was the perfect storm and the wave capsized my life.

four days after this conflict, the world takes back what i had taken...a belief that i controlled my life and my destiny. not so. a wave slaps me down, and then another, and despite my best efforts to protect myself from it, i keep my glasses, but lose my ACL in my knee. it hurt, and i knew as soon as it happened that in that second my whole summer was altered in a direction that i knew i would eventually have had to go in, but the moment was then now. no vacation to san francisco. no doing the things i had planned to do in my yard and house. no contact with my mother and banishment from the family.

personal injury wasn't the end of it.  austin's struggle with alcohol and his emotions deepened to the point where he fell down steps drunk, got a concussion and split open his chin. this occurs after his arm hurts enough to get him retired for the summer from the waynesboro generals. now he is in the apartment by himself, nothing to do but summer school, struggling over his infidelities and his quasi-relationship with swimmer girl (who dumps him) and his struggles with his temper. his temper gets him in more trouble two weeks later when he is drinking because he is depressed and punches a kid in the nose, breaking it in three places and knocking him out. he is drunk, again, and this time he earns his second substance abuse strike at uva. he is temporarily banished from the team. he has to go to the judicial council at uva. the end results are that he gets probation to match the 2nd strike. he no longer has any wiggle room. he cannot drink, period. he struggles with the concept that he can not party. but some good comes from it. he begins to learn who his friends are and that  some of his influences are not good ones. he learns about the chemicals that control his body. he succumbs to going to see the school sports psychologist and begins the hard work that he will have to do to become a better person. he is in the tunnel. there is a light at the end, but only he will know how long it will take him to get to that. the journey is slow and often you can get lost in the dark and things get out of proportion. but he is moving forward. as someone once said, you can't move forward until you stop running. i am hoping he has at least slowed down to a walk. his pain hopefully will lead to a gain in him as a person and help him mature and become a better person. and his pain has taught me that no matter how hard you try, you cannot control all things, even the things that affect the people you love.

i spent the summer in the same chair watching the tour de france and the olympics and a lot of cooking shows. i rediscovered perry mason, route 66, old hawaii 5-0's and the naked city. but i also learned that you have to sometimes embrace the pain and revel in the fact that the new journey isn't as painful as the old journey. i have 50% less pain than i have had in sooo many years. the lessening of that pain has cleared up a lot of ways that i have viewed my life, and that has tended to be in the negative. i don't feel as rubbed raw as i often did. i no longer feel defeated and helpless in the grip of pain. i have gotten a glimpse of what my life can be if i am willing to endure some temporary pain. what is a month or so of pain if you can get the rest of your life without it? we always associate pain with physical pain, but can't we also apply this concept to emotional pain? the physical things we do are just a reflection of the underlying emotional issues that fuel that physical fire. the human body is most definitely governed by its emotional counterpart. we manifest our emotions in disease and physical ailments. they don't call it DIS-EASE for nothing. when we are not at ease in our hearts, our bodies reflect it. we chew our nails, have upset stomachs, become paralyzed by panic attacks, have migraines, restless sleep, tics and any other variety of outward symptoms. our physical reactions are often subtle and occur and grow gradually. this makes them less immediately noticeable, thus making us less likely to pay attention to the warning symptoms that they are sending us. and so it goes...we eventually implode and then the work begins.

so i am in the sunshine now. my pain is less. my internal pain is less, though i doubt it will go away until i have a conversation with my mother. i have adjusted for the most part to the awkwardness of the situation. it makes me sad, but in the broader world i have accepted my mother's reasonings and don't have much anger about it. occasionally i get annoyed by it. but then i think like she does and understand why she must cling to this course of action. as more time goes on i will either become more sad or more hardened. or i could become more free and more accepting. i am hoping for the latter. i have many more challenges ahead, but i am hoping i can maintain the focus on the future that i have today.