“I’m Sorry and I’m Replying Soon and I Love You and I’m Sorry!”

Honestly?… I haven’t said the vulnerable part yet

I’ve been saying things like the following way too much lately:

“I’m having one of those weeks that feels like a “stage week” (which is what I now call any week when you have so little time that you can’t even text back or check emails or even eat, etc)- Exasperated by a ton of schedule shifting things and a lot of surgery recovery curveballs that make all things take twice as long.

So I’m failing in all the ways.

If you’re a friend who’s still tolerating me and hanging in, I will come up for air and be human again- I swear! I just have to survive.

I wish we had AIM Away messages still because I need to leave a permanent =

“I’m sorry and I’m replying soon and I love you and I’m sorry!” somewhere, somehow.

But for some now, right now, I have to simply say:

Thank you for your patience, support, eyeballs and time.

I do not take it for granted, and I truly believe it’s this exchange of diary entry and digital friendship that sometimes keeps so many of us going in a very real, non-digitized way.

I’m going to confess something I shouldn’t…

So please put on your empathy goggles before you read this?

I am always honest when I write. Even so, the interweb is full of douche nozzles who grip onto sentences without nuance or subtext, and twist and twist and twist.

Still: honesty.

I am having an “attack”.

The last time I had an “attack” this badly, I was dancing in a professional modern company in DC and remember crying secretly on the long commute to and from, wondering if this would be a forever problem. I had no idea that this profound and debilitating hand and wrist pain would be something that comes and goes like the tide.

I don’t know about you, but if a pain comes and goes, I cannot find the energy to give a sh*t about it. The second it’s gone, I rush to get as much life squished into the gaps before the metaphoric garage door squishes me again.

Then, when the pain is enough to completely freeze my autonomy and ability for awhile, I start to freak out wanting answers… but it normally dissipates a few weeks later, wherein I don’t want to waste any precious time dealing with healthcare while the suffering is less.

Does that make any sense?

(Someone make it make sense.)

I don’t like to share about problems that don’t have an answer yet. It makes me feel like a buoy in an imperfect storm. But I like to share the truth and the truth of most of our lives is: if we wait to have all the answers before being honest about things we can’t control and can’t yet explain… we will be silent until the water overtakes us.

I can’t yet explain why I have these horrific nerve-pain flares and numb-pins-and-needles, but when it hits my paws, I become completely cut off from the world.

As a Deaf person, my hands ARE my life.

No matter how much I “should” do “XYZ”, something about this raw and reverberating pain piling on top of the existing new pains - my spine being the one I can’t currently escape (worse than on and off organ BS) - shuts down my psyche. I feel shut down.

Writing about something with no clear origin yet (that I’ve had the time or tolerance to explore), while still knowing that whenever something is wrong, my doctors tend to uncover what it is … feels vulnerable.

If you felt this, you’d think I’m being tough as nails.

But I’m also not. I’m exhausted and depleted and cold (our heat is broken) and wish I could stumble into an easier path somehow.

And I know this will read as negative and depressing. We like inspiring people who spout steel tread linings, but… I also like honest people.

And honestly?… I haven’t said the vulnerable part yet.

The real truth is tomorrow.

PART ONE.

More tomorrow!

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