Evening Ramble

Well, it's not midnight, but since I just got the blog up and running, I thought I at least owed you an opening post since you dropped by. As I mentioned in my bio, I'm always in pain...and I like to write poetry...so add the two together and you get...No, NOT pained poetry! You get poetry about pain. I have a number of such poems but I won't slam you with such a gloomy topic since you just got here for the first time. And don't worry, the blog won't always be so erudite...It will be my talking to you, just like I sit and talk to myself.

I'm a compulsive writer...I have numerous blogs, and participate in forums, and also have maintained a journal since I was in eighth grade...Of course I burned about 20 years' worth of them. What I wouldn't give to have them back now! The reason I destroyed them was that, my daughter was young and I was currently ensconced in normalcy and didn't ever want her to look into the dark corners of my earlier life. But now, she's 18 and my best friend and both she and I would be interested to find out what kind of craziness went on back then (since I don't recall much of it at all, and what I recall was more what was in my head than in my surroundings...so I'm quite confused about what really DID go down.) That was when my 30 year struggle with mental illness really got underway....But that's a whole OTHER story. We started out talking about pain...so I guess I rambled into telling you about all of the pain of my life and not my current, physical pain.

I have an expression. I say it to people who have a clue what I'm going through and who don't say things like, "Oh, yes, I fully comprehend what it is you are going through. I hurt my back once..." Well. It's apples and planets my dear. It is easier for me to hear when people say things like, "I have such a stiff neck today! It's really hurting." But then they go on to apologize for complaining while all along they are sitting next to Job himself. haha. (Sorry for the "haha's" I often make myself laugh.) And I say to them this, (and THIS is the expression I referred to above before I was so rudely disoriented): "Pain is Pain. Everyone has pain of some kind and to them in that minute, it's as large and all-consuming as they can endure it to be."

Now, lest you think that I should have said that to person #1...The reason it bothers me, is that they think they understand what it's like to say, be on the rack for thirty years or so and every day have the screws pulled tighter...and they think that their pulled muscle gives them the authority to think that. However, I definitely must give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe that was just their awkward way of trying to be sympathetic...And they only confused empathy with sympathy. Person #2 has more humility and comprehension I think...and so I don't pooh-pooh their pain. To them, it is as disconcerting, maybe, as mine is to me. I've gotten to be quite a pro at managing pain that exceeds belief.

NOW, to the poem! The reason I like this one (other than for its silly rhyme scheme ((I just wanted to see if I could pull it off)) ) is that it's among the more positive of my pieces...well, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I will stop arguing with myself and give you the poem:

God and Pain

By

Cynthia Lott Vogel

I cannot articulate my agony;

Cannot convey its tenacity.

Lonely, I live out its verity

As anguished, I pray to my Deity.

I do not ask “why?” but only

Wonder in some deepest part of me

Why God should seem to be in complicity

With powers of suffering, When He is Almighty

To save and to heal out of love for me.

Yet inner healing must have priority.

Greater need have I of maturity

Than to coast thru life being pain free.

My weakness keeps me clinging fast to Thee,

Trembling legs stumble haltingly

Your ears are soft to my prayer and plea

As you bend down, lift, and carry me.