I realize I’ve been remiss in updating my information about my consultation; it got rescheduled for March 29. Barring another rescheduling, I’ll let everyone know how it went. My desire is not to have surgery unless I’m about to go septic; my naturopathic doctor has had many cases like mine and has had success in healing my condition. I realize Western society has a tendency to be skeptical of something like acupuncture and herbal remedies, but as it’s a system that’s been having success for about 4,000 years I believe it has credence. But I should also note that he’s fully aware that if surgery does become necessary, then I absolutely must have it. Until then, though, I’d rather try something that’s a bit more organic.
So far I’ve been fine with some minor alterations in my diet, his treatments and adding exercise back into my regime. On one hand I’m very glad to be doing that again, but on the other: ow! I hurt! But that’s a good sign that I’m just using muscles that have gotten somewhat stagnant over the last six months.
Yes, six months. For those of you who know me, you know that exercise is something that’s very important to me. I lost 50+ pounds at one point, and I continued to go to maintain my success. But at one point I hit a very frustrating plateau in my routine and even put on 20 pounds that weren’t muscle. I tried everything to change that around for nearly a year. But around September I realized I’d started to get frenetic about my workouts and that I was sick of the gym. Saying I was burned out would be like saying the Titanic had a small mishap.
So I quit going and decided not to return until I was truly ready to, and had sorted out in my head what was blocking me from moving forward with my health goals. Interestingly, it was around that time that the roller coaster I spoke of in my first blog really started moving, because I’d finally started to go inward to look at what was holding me back – not just with my exercise, but with things I wanted in general from life.
By letting go of exercise and going inwards, I found myself really facing up to my own internal walls, and I began to finally allow myself to pull them down. What I’ve found behind them over the past six months has been utterly amazing.
I can’t really get into exactly what started coming up; it would be a novel, rather than a blog, but those of you to whom I’ve confided know it’s been huge and forceful and extremely revealing. The thing is, what began coming to me weren’t just your normal “everyday” understandings; I began truly knowing not just where I was heading, but when, how and with whom. But the thing was, it started to really overwhelm me and even scare me in some ways. After all, how could I possibly just know all of that?
It’s one thing to think of someone, and then pop there they are on the phone or in your email inbox. Or to think of a song and have it come on right after the one to which you’re listening on the radio. It’s quite fully another thing to have a whole section of your life and where you’re heading just come to you. It's like channeling the entire playlist for the day on your favorite radio station. No pun intended, there.
And the more I tried to tell myself that there was no way I could possibly just “know” all of this, the stronger they became and the more vivid. Part of what perplexed me so was that I honestly didn’t know if I was so overwhelmed by the truth of it all that I was trying to convince myself it was all fantasy…or the other way around. Meaning that it was fantasy, but so very appealing I kept trying to make it true.
But what I found was that the harder I tried to disprove it to myself, to make it simply Fantasies Gone Wild, so to speak, the more outside information I stumbled over that proved, often literally in black and white, that it was all real and very truly centered around this one person that kept popping up in and around all of it.
It was emotionally overwhelming and really quite frightening at times. But at the same time, I knew I was receiving (for lack of a better term) information that was very important. And as the months unfolded past Thanksgiving, into Christmas and into Spring, I began to be more and more confused by what I was actually supposed to do with it. Was it really the person I kept seeing and feeling? The times and places and events? Or were they just things I was creating for some other reason? Meaning, were they just grand metaphors leading me to something very important in my life?
Or both?
The sensations and information got stronger and stronger and more vivid; bizarre coincidences about the person involved began occurring in my life. I don’t mean just random things, I mean things of a solid nature where I’d get a sense of something in their life, utterly randomly (like as I drove to work or styled my hair in the morning) but have no way of actually knowing it – and then discovering a few days or weeks later I was dead on with the knowledge.
I have to be really clear here: I don’t know this person, I’ve never met them – even in passing. I know who it is and, yes, it’s someone with a public face, so to speak, but the circles in which this person runs are ones I don’t follow, not even in passing. But I got the strong sense that at some point -- in the very near future -- I would.
It was enough to make me wonder if I had some odd portal in my apartment through which Rod Serling had slipped; I half expected to have The Twilight Zone music cue in and start rattling around in my head.
It was eerie, and last Friday (the 18th) it all came to a head.
All I can really say is that I had all of it, even down to the most minute details, confirmed by an outside source. And I have to be really, precisely clear here: she had had absolutely no way of knowing any of what was going on in my life. But she managed to confirm everything, right down to the smallest of details. This I also have to make very clear: there was no prompting on my end through answers to questions or even questions to her on my part.
It was one of the most bizarre moments of my life.
It was as if someone random rang one of you up, and related in perfect detail what you did last weekend, without having any way to know it. It was that exact.
I couldn’t help but have my hair go on end and feel my skin prickle; I was tempted again to go looking for a Rod Serling Portal, thinking maybe it was perhaps under the recycling basket way in the back of my pantry, or behind the boxes in my second closet.
But there was no Rod Serling, no Twilight Zone music. Instead, it was purely Dragnet: Just the facts, Ma’am.
It was both exhilarating and terrifying. Just like a roller coaster ride should be, I suppose.
It was exhilarating to know I’d been so accurate in my own sensations and impressions, but terrifying for the same exact reason. My roller coaster had just given me a very white knuckle loop and turn through a rather unexpected tunnel, leaving me with Bugs Bunny playing the bongo drums in my chest, and a rather whirly case of butterflies in my stomach.
While it also brought a large amount of relief to find out I wasn’t going mad (okay, the jury’s still out on that one in some aspects!) knowing that I did know, and had been so utterly accurate made it feel as if I’d come around a bend in my ride, certain the car was about to roll to a glide if not a full stop – and instead found a whole new leg of loops and twists– along with an octane-sweetened burst of speed.
There’s a huge amount of change coming towards me, emotionally, geographically – and even physically. And it involves this person to whom I'm seemingly linked. But the thing is – it’s all exactly what I’ve felt myself moving towards my whole life – especially the last four years. It’s funny how finally getting – or at least heading into – what you’ve always wanted can be so frightening. Last Friday brought on a whole new swash of emotions as bright and full as any good midway out there. In a way, it’s kind of like having Las Vegas suddenly spring open in your head, robust with all the excitement, promise and emotions involved.
But I also know that’s normal and natural to feel those things after you have an experience like that.
I’ve been digesting all of this over this for the last several days, oscillating between putting it into a blog and not. I wanted to tell everyone about what’s been going on, but I didn’t know how to format my thoughts into coherent phrases. Plus I haven’t been sleeping all that well over the last week; night before last I got a collected three hours of rest. Unable to function lucidly, I finally went home around three yesterday and plummeted into a dreamless nap for about an hour and a half. I felt better after that, and I did sleep better last night as well. Not great. But it was better.
But, then, I have had a lot to absorb over the past week. I’ve felt caught on a Scrambler-like ride of emotions – one moment I’m thrilled and excited, the next calm and confident and accepting of it all, then feeling quite scared. And sometimes it’s hit me so hard I’ve simply had to let myself cry so hard I can hardly breathe. It’s a catharsis, and though wild and wooly, it’s meant to heal. And I feel as if I am – and even finally allowing myself to heal and step into what I’ve been working so hard to create over the last four years…and maybe even my whole life.
You’re welcome to believe this or not. There are some moments where I’m absolutely sure – and others where I find myself mulling over my own doubts and skepticisms about all of this – even with the confirmation.
But even for all that’s been generated, I have to admit that an anonymous quote I came across recently in an email sums it up best for me:
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW! What a ride!"
And make sure to stop for some cotton candy and a bag of freshly-popped popcorn; it makes the journey all the sweeter.
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