You know the game – on this day 25 years ago [fill in the blank].

It’s the kind of trivia you hear at parties or celebrations of noteworthy anniversaries. There’s a company that has a retro-designed booklet of the highlights of popular culture in the year you were born. You can buy it at Morgan Imports at Brightleaf if you’re local.

On this day 25 years ago, I awoke to a numb face. Not my whole face, mind you, but the spot over my upper right lip. Within days the numb patch grew. Within a week there was sharp pain that moved across my face, and I began a tennis match of neuralgic confusion. It was numb, and it hurt at the same time. I promise.

There were other problems. To spare you the laundry list, I’ll summarize that it included such things as hanging on to the couch for dear life to keep from being pitched onto the floor as the room spun around me, muscles so weak I couldn’t hold a notebook or sit up straight at work without wilting onto the office floor, and shortness of breath so immediate, encompassing, and then transient, that it appeared my 26-year-old heart was fading fast. Ever have a large needle jammed into your lower forearm during an emergency trip to the hospital to check arterial blood gasses? I have.

There were MRIs, neuromuscular pop quizzes liked “evoked potential” I always seemed to fail, and a ton of other first-time tests that created trauma – tests I always faced alone. Hardest for me were the people closest who didn’t understand what was happening or who didn’t believe it.

Other than that 1995 was just fine.

~~~

February 17, 1995. It’s a date I penned in small notebooks along with brief lists of symptoms for each day thereafter. The neurologist was concerned and shared his home number. The rheumatologist named Payne shared empathy in puppy-dog eyes each time we met to review the latest addition to the list of days and accompanying symptoms.

February 18        Right face numbness worse

February 20        Dizzy with nausea; malar rash

February 26        Struck by lightning on the right side of my face; teeth exploded – I swear it

There’s a collection of small notebooks with the lists of the decades. The details no longer matter to me; this is the benefit of the gifts of time and perspective.

~~~

I didn’t expect to sit down tonight with fluffy dogs by my side to share any of this. It just seems that 25 years of a life of 51.5 years – the time seems worthy of a few minutes. So here I sit with fluffy dogs, considering the two.point.five decades of chronic illness, much of it un-diagnosed, mysterious, and invisible.

There’s really no more looking back I care to do – not tonight. What matters to me is what I have learned along the way. Okay – and this – the blood gas test – dear god almighty it hurts.

But seriously, it does hurt, and it’s terrifying to watch, even if you’re stoic and brave.

What good can come of such experiences? Something, I surely hope.

There are a few noteworthy quotes on my refrigerator door. One is this : we are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.

Life is filled with suffering. Everyone has the experience, most of us more than a few times. The truth is it just keeps coming. As I heard a guest of Oprah one Sunday say, life is an ongoing cycle of learning to ask for what we need and accepting what we’re given.

The defining nature of youth is to image that you’re the only one experiencing xyz. Conversely, the wisdom of time teaches that we’re really all alike in nearly every way, though we take different paths to our shared destination. And this: we’re all just walking each other home.

I’ve strayed.

I like to look at the big things from three perspectives. 1) The implications for you, your soul; 2) the implications for you with other people; 3) considerations for you with the transcendent (your God or your mystery or the sacred – or whatever you might happen to believe).

I’ll start with #2.

• People can be very good, and they can also be real assholes. Most are somewhere in between. Apply the normal curve; do the math.
• If you leave this life with one or two good, solid friends, you’re blessed.  Everyone else will hold you back.
• Mostly people who are not yet spiritually wise are, by definition, self- focused at best and downright selfish at worst. It’s human nature.
• It’s not about you.
• By that I mean if your very real and serious illness isn’t a concern to some, it has zero to do with you. They’re where they are; their absence or lack of concern is either a reflection of their hollow values or a sign of where they are in that moment. It’s about them.
• Spend your time with people whose vision is larger – people with appropriate empathy and awareness of trends, sameness, and larger and deeper things.
• My mother was right: we teach people how to treat us. Exercise that muscle in ways that promote your well-being. Try speaking for yourself. Keep practicing.
• Something you go through may be of great help to someone else down the road. I don’t think that’s why things happen (there’s doesn’t have to be a reason), but I do think – I have experienced – that we eventually all experience the same kinds of suffering. Most people do. It’s neither good nor bad, just a truth.
• All people are eventually seen for who they are, including you.
• The truth is always eventually known.
• If you’re really lucky, you get to see it.
• People do their best, even when they’re jerks; everyone is struggling.

That’s enough about relationships and people.

• You are beautiful and worthy and valid. Yes, you. You.
• Nothing very good or very bad lasts very long. Hang in there. Most of life is in the middle. I refer you again to the normal curve.
• You really are given life experience to practice balancing this dialectic: a) ask for what you need and deserve; b) and, at the same time, be content with what you receive.
• The longer you practice releasing control of everything, including outcomes, the happier and more healthy you will be.
• Most of all, your experience and your feelings and wishes and all the rest are necessarily valid. You are valid. Even when you feel like a half-numb, cane-using invalid who is in-valid and a complete social outlier. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, and you’re perfect just as you are. That’s right, I said perfect.

As to the transcendent, living is about moving toward reconciliation and reunion. And that’s all there is to say about that.

Oh, and this quote from the t-shirt my sister gave me recently: not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be okay.

~~~

That’s enough for a Monday evening. It’s February 17 in the year 2020. Every single moment is the gift. I have nothing but gratitude – even for the blood-gas thing.

~~~

More gems from my fridge:

“If you have not lived through something, it is not true.”

“Learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself.”

“For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes!”