I Can't Remember When....

Most people lament, "I remember when..." with the delusion that those words spoken may turn back the clock to a different time.  Frequently, this is spoken regarding a job--a bad, boring job.  For many, many years I worked in a job from which I felt that my full potential was not being employed.
As many years as vehemence flowed constantly, I cannot remember that feeling.  I do not want to be taken back to that time.
In 2009, I had to stop working.  I have been known to say, "My get up and go got up and went."  Essential tremors and osteoarthritis allied with the well-entrenched cerebral palsy, and her silent partner, epilepsy to execute a "successful" coup d'etat over life as I knew it.  In 2009, I could not fathom the notion that I might live without working in the paid workforce.
Every 18 months or so, I must submit myself to an external reexamination of my incapacity to return to the workforce--a reverse performance review, if you will.  I am not a submissive person.  For now I must be.
Every 18 months or so, I must return to four humbling questions:
1. Has there been a change in your condition in the last 18 months?
2. If  "Yes" please describe the specific change or changes?
3. Please list all of the types of activities that you do during the course of a typical day.  What do you do from the time you arise in the morning until you retire at night?  Do you require assistance?
4. Please place the number shown next to the statement that most accurately reflects your ability/inability to perform each of them:
(1) I can perform this activity independently
(2) I can perform this activity with the use of equipment or adaptive devices
(3) I cannot perform this activity
      a.  Dressing
      b.  Toilet
      c.  Feed yourself with food that has been prepared and made available to you

            d.  Voluntary bladder and bowel control or ability to maintain a reasonable level of personal hygiene

e.         e.  Bathe (tub, shower, or bath)

            f.  Transfer from bed to chair

     On the one hand, there are many reasons why it seems that I should not make the confession I do now, I must submit to this confession.  As easy as it may seem to some to be hereto submissive, let me set the record straight.  It is not.  I understand the need.  Yet it is not easy.  

    I seek no dramatic persona.  Purely and simply I am brought to my knees whenever these questions are set before me.  The first time I faced these questions, they were excruciating.  These are not questions that elicit dignity.  These questions redefine what honesty must be--what the honesty of daily life is.  Try as I will to soften the blow, each time these questions bring me to my knees.

     My concept of someone who is no longer able to be in the paid workforce is that they are bedridden.  Yet, I am not.  

     I live within my limits working with what remains--an important part of those limits is that I cannot employ my body in the paid workforce.  

     I cannot remember when I worked by the time and revenue demands of a large corporation.  

     I pray I may work my way through this reexamination with honesty, integrity, and my dignity intact.  When can I nap?  Where is the Breyer's?

Mourning A Body--My Body

My left hand is my life's blood.  It is the vehicle I use to craft words, the tool I use to live.  My right hand has never served me.  She never will.  I know that.  Blame is not for me to assign.  Anger is not mine to wield.  My right hand has never served me as others' have.
This week, a gradual diminishment--a lifelong fear--came to a head.  I made progress to the outer world.  Not by others misassigning it.  I didn't misassign it either.  Rather, I rallied the consolation I need.
A mere appointment for hand therapy, hand x-rays, and a neck MRI did not deliver this week to me...not alone.
Every 18 months or so, I receive a questionnaire to reauthorize my long-term disability insurance.  A formality perhaps.  Yet, this time it hit me hard--it hits me in the gut.  She pulls no punches.
I have forgotten the sound of my left hand's voice propelling me up out of bed in the morning.  Did she ever speak?  Have I lost my hearing?  Am I deaf to her call for help?  How long has she--how long have they--been gone?
Did I abuse my left had so much--with such bravado--that I have lost her forever?
Will remorse...a contrite heart...a confessing of my wrongful pride...be enough that my hand may be entrusted to my service?
Voicing that thought through my still-working fingers is embarrassing.  Am I losing dignity as I stand aside of my body?
I hold on for dear life in the bathtub as I pull my body to a standing position after bathing myself.  Will this be the time I will lose my grip and fall?
The time for contrition has come...a shower/bath bench.  I have looked from afar.  This week's questions--the questions are served by only one answer.  I confess a bit of vanity remains.  With Amazon.com's hand to hold mine, soon I will be the proud owner of a reasonably-priced teak shower/bath bench.
I mourn a body--my body.  Is it mine to blame?  Is it mine to wield anger at because it is not serving me.
I must serve my body regardless of how it serves me.
Thirty-two years ago I was baptized--I joined the Catholic Church.  Through friends, I learned it was more than possible to blend intellect into faith into my being.  Skeptics to that blending asked, "But...resurrection...that just doesn't make any sense!  Do you believe in resurrection?  Do you believe in The Resurrection?"
I did not know I did not understand what words to utter.
Time has passed....years have elapsed....life has changed me...life has changed my body....much over many years has made now sense at all.
Do I understand resurrection?  Do I believe in resurrection?
No.  I must.  I am a woman of faith, I am a woman of hope.  I am a woman of love.  I am a woman of belief.
Do I understand The Resurrection?  Do I believe in The Resurrection.
No.  I breathe seeking to believe what I do not understand.
I mourn a body--my body.  I mourn a bath--the loss of a bath.  I was always a woman of a shower.  So, why am I mourning?  I seek understanding that has yet to be delivered to me.
I mourn a body--my body.