The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I spent the day with OBF helping a friend of his with a film shoot for a school project (film school). That day started at 4:30am, for me. I normally go to bed at 4am, so having to get up then, was hard enough in and of itself. But that day was a bad pain day, for my normal chronic pain bullshit, on top of it. And I mean bad. Add in time of the month cramping... And I was in agony just sitting still. But there I was, lugging stuff up and down stairs to get gear to film sets, helping hang lights, playing gofer, helping out in any way I could.
I was eating advil like it was candy. I was going through cigarettes like they were air. And the whole time, a battle was raging in my head. Pain was launching an offensive, trying to get me to submit. Trying to get me to give up a part of my life, yet again. And I was arming the ramparts in preparation for the siege. I would not let it win, I vowed to myself. I was not going to be weak in front of all these people that I had never met before and didn't know. I was not going to "rain on the parade" by needing to go home early. I was not going to be a waste of space by sitting around on my ass doing nothing. I was going to be productive, and useful, and have fun, even if it meant gritting my teeth so hard I broke them (again).
OBF's attempts to get me to take things easy were spurned. Especially after I suffered the embarrassment of the security guards for the shoot site asking me if I was okay, after I'd noticeably slowed when climbing the stairs in front of them for the 10th time (20th? I lost count). Admitting any weakness, admitting any vulnerability, would have shattered the mental front I was putting up in order to maintain functionality.
My body was screaming at me. It was yelling, and wailing, and working against me with every movement. It's assault on my resolve was monumental. Like something out of those Iwo Jima movies that everyone likes to make. But I held out. I was, to mix my military event metaphors, Sparta, in the face of the Persians.
The thing that let me hold out was... Well, it was anger. I took every ounce of anger I had at my life being impacted in such a negative way, every bit of resentment over the embarrassment of not even being able to climb stairs without someone noticing my difficulty, every bit of hate for my body's rebellion, and I held onto it. I breathed life into it. I nurtured it. I let it be my strength. I took power in anger. I let it fuel me. I was smiling, and I was friendly, and jovial, and all the things that you're supposed to be in social situations, but underneath... Underneath I was a seething ball of anger. And anything I could use to add to that anger, I took.
Fueling that anger on my own, however, is work that I'm not used to yet. I'm not an angry person, generally speaking. Being angry usually scares me. So I have a hard time finding ways to keep myself angry. And when I was struggling to maintain that anger, OBF joked, in a loving and affectionate way, about me being a slowpoke, and I seized on it. Being made fun of, in a caring manner, for my infirmity was something I'd never experienced before. But it worked. It was a bellows on that furnace I was stoking. And it helped. The shock of it, and the momentary sparks of rage, gave me the strength to pull myself up again, and re-man those ramparts, and rain vats of boiling oil down on the pain attempting to storm my gates.
I had power over my pain, then, through that anger. Despite the broken glass feeling in my joints, despite the sharp tearing feelings in my back, and thighs, I had power. And I was using it. I was using it to hold off that horde until I was somewhere it was safe to lose the battle. And I did. Barely. I couldn't help with putting all the gear back in the truck at the end of the night, simply because I didn't trust myself on the stairs any longer, but I was still useful, and I was still functional, even if I had to fight back the urge to cry as I leaned against OBF's chest and admitted that I just couldn't carry any more shit.
By the time we were in the truck heading home, almost 18 hours after I'd gotten up in the morning, I was holding myself together with the thinnest of threads of willpower. I knew I needed to be able to get up the stairs to my apartment when we finally got home. I knew that if I lost the battle before that point, someone would have to carry me. And I would not suffer that indignity. Under no circumstance was anyone going to carry me up my front steps. I would do it myself, dammit. Even if it killed me.
And I did. I may have all but collapsed when I got in the front door. I may have needed help getting undressed and into a hot bath. And I may have let out sobbing cries of agony as LIBF helped me out of my shoes and my jeans. But even after an almost 20 hour day on my feet, lugging and carrying and bending and twisting and reaching and stretching...
No one had to carry me up those stairs.
amazing last line. You are strong. Very strong.
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