the past few days have been intense for me, to say the least. yesterday was the first day of classes - an entry level psych class that promises to be pretty fluffy, but i need it as a breadth requirement; and my most-looked-forward-to of all poetry workshop*. there was a 9 hour break in between them which i filled up with both kinds of therapy, a house-cleaning, and a long shower. i was up and moving from 6 am until 2 am. and i got up this morning at 5. the insomnia is back, ladies and gentlemen.

both therapies yesterday (by which i mean psychological and physiological) centred around pain. flood, my physiotherapist, has been on vacation for a while, so i haven't been treated in two weeks. this meant dread, and aches built up as the weeks progressed. for some reason, my left forearm seized up, my hip was tight, my back was affected - they all felt like they were burning. for days. i couldn't sleep; i was nauseous.

admission i am making for the first time here: sometimes i'm worried that i'm creating this. that most of my pain, if not all of it, is psychosomatic - is this normal, i wonder? can it all be projected by a tender part of the brain?

it's real. flood reassured me of that yesterday when his hands found me for the first time in a while. my body was in a prolonged spastic state, basically.

i've had nightmares about it, because not only does my body itself worry me, but i worry about burdening other people with it. there are not many people in my 'real' life who i trust with these feelings. i don't want to be the person always in pain. i don't want the pain, period.

i was alone throughout most of the day today - i've spent most of the time since 10 around campus as i live too far away to commute. and i've been THINKING. being sad, and a bit despairing, until i realized that i was fighting feeling sad and a bit despairing. i was telling myself, "no, i shouldn't be feeling this way. i should accept it. i should be at peace with it."

when that's not exactly my truth right now. it's hard for me to admit that to people, to myself, and it's why i'm blogging about it right now - i want to be held accountable. i AM sad. and a bit despairing. my body might wear out earlier than i want it to, so i might not be able to be an 80-year-old grandma drinking gin on the porch with my beautiful sister in the house we wanted to share.

mortality weighs on me tonight. september 8 is the day that my mother actually died, but today is the day that the doctors broke it to my sister and i. today is the day when i realized that the scaled-back meals that the candy stripers handed out to her meant not that my mother wasn't eating, but that she didn't need to be nourished. it's a weird time for me. little firebombs of memory keep going off, and i just want to hide, a bit.

i started to write out this phrase: this is what i want, and then erased what i had written. i know EXACTLY what would comfort me right now, and i know it's a bandaid solution, but it's right there in front of me, so tactile i can almost touch it. i can't write it down yet, though. i have problems owning what i want. but not what i'm feeling, not anymore.

i am feeling a little sad, yes. and i'm hurting a little bit now. but hopeful, too, again. maybe.

*my poetry workshop is my DREAM class. however, that might change. but i'll be less ambiguous later.