Writing and Pain

Today I observed something about my days that is interesting and unexpected.  Some of my productiveness is borne of pain.  Yesterday and today were some substantial arthritis days and in the face of the pain I have to make decisions about my actions.

Yesterday I chased the pain away with cleaning.  Okay "away" isn't quite accurate but it does describe my mental focus.  As I pushed through one and then another task such as vacuuming and mopping I went to the physical meditative place of work rather than the hopelessness of pain.

When I am done and when I rest, which I inevitably have to do, the reality of the pain is there but I feel a satisfaction knowing what I accomplished anyway.

Today the arthritis was most strong in my right hip and I stretched and pushed it into the bed.  The fevered feeling I used to get daily that would curl me into a pain fighting sleep seems to have gone away, so laying there makes the pain more bothersome.

Sometimes reading magnifies pain; emotional pain.  I've started in on a kindle version of Tiny Beautiful Things and oh my goodness, the beauty is wrenchingly painful.  She writes so raw.  She is vulnerable and shares the sharpest pains.  I love it, but after a few hours I feel the pain in my heart.  So I had to take a break and (clean a little) read Spark Joy, which despite the name comforts me into a safe web of cleaning and organization facts and away from raw matters of the heart.

While considering these feelings I pushed myself to sit down and write.  I need to write more.  It is good for my health.  The feelings and heart-knots I get into from reading sometimes need regurgitated and expelled from my fingertips onto the page.  To say, sometimes my heart hurts.  Sometimes my hip hurts.  This is me.