Yesterday didn’t start well. I was fatigued from another night of poor sleep, due to an as-of-yet undiagnosed shoulder injury that saves its deepest bone pain for night.
The pain always wakes me around 2 or 3 a.m. and then, no matter how I position the injured arm on a rolled-up towel, no matter how many shifting micromovements I make, no matter where I rest my hand on my torso, in the end, I’m forced to go to the kitchen for more painkillers, more CBD balm, and more ice. And then I hope to drift back to sleep.
It feels as if I’ve taken more painkillers in the past couple of months than I have my entire life combined.
So, yesterday was one of those mornings where I needed something, but I wasn’t sure what. I just knew I couldn’t give it to myself.
During the ride in to work, I silenced my audiobook, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, and started saying the prayer I sometimes say in times like this: “Help, help, help, help, help. Thank you in advance for your help.”
Later that day, I was in a Zoom meeting with my writer’s group. K. suggested we write about our relationship with pain, so I did that for 20 minutes. When it was my…
