Simply

Funny, to be here again.
In this valley that I have tried to leave for as long as I can remember.

I'm hooked up to an IV, getting the lifestory from the dude next to me who calls his brain "swiss cheese," because of the nerve damage done by malpractice meds, psych wards, and untreated Epstein Barr virus. The same virus that waved red flags in my blood test from last week. shit man. It's hard not to panic.

It seems like the past few years, I have been preoccupied with what's wrong with me.
And I've grown to worry a lot about what my peers think of me, thinking that they have more of a handle on life, more wisdom, more health, and perhaps they are somehow closer to god because they don't have chronic health problems...
A lot of unnecessary self pity in there.
I worry that people who get sick, get pushed away.
it's hard to know what to say--on both ends--when someone seems like they're not ok.

I sit in the lazy-boy room, approach the fourth hour of treatment. time for the glutathione injection, and the lidocaine, because it makes my vein ache up to my teeth.
I sit and think about how I've been dealing with extreme physical pain since being a small child, hunched under the dinner table clutching at my stomach, wondering why it always hurt so much. Hearing whispers above, she's just doing it for attention- ignore it.

Pain of any sort, obviously hurts.
And chronic pain, when unresolved, sews itself inside of you, creates a memory of its existence, but never loses potency.
You find ways to deal with it- you close off, sever connections from your brain to your body, you stop listenting... to everyone, you hide, and you rely on your faith to get you through the next moments until you can be alone again. Alone becomes a haven, a cave, the only place where you hear yourself honestly.
The nurse asks me, Oh honey, why do you look so sad? Isn't the lidocaine working?

shut up, jill.

In addition, when chronic pain persists
(stomach-back-head day after day),
and when you make hiding it part of your personality,
it can turn you into a psycho.

But I know I'm not... a psycho.
Or a victim.... although it's easy to start asking myself if this is a punishment for something.
this experience has made me feel so many things, including isolated and ashamed, as if having to focus simply on making my body function is less noble than those in gear to change the world with their vision. as if perhaps I am quite dense, and cannot grasp the survival thing. the self-love thing. even though I do... love myself.
I have also felt humility, awe, vulnerability and gratitude, because of chronic illness. I've learned that honesty and being human with another human is something quite sacred and beautiful.

...we call this a "family" and I wonder what that even means.

I am under the impression that its our experiences in life that allow us connection and relation, that make us Family.
I don't think that anyone really wants pity or attention.
Simply presence. Simply love.