Navel Encounter
I’m in a funk. I tried explaining it to The Socialist yesterday, but the process of exposition is made difficult by the fact that I can’t actually explain it to even myself.
I think that, in part, it’s got to do with the fact that I’m now nearly eleven months post-transplant. This time last year I was preparing to die. (That’s different from saying that I was expecting to die, so don’t anybody go getting their knickers in a twist.) I had come to terms with the idea that I had a fatal illness, and that each day that passed without a phone call from the hospital increased the odds that I wasn’t going to be getting a new liver in time. I had written my will and made my wishes on certain items known to those who would have to deal with what ever messes I left behind. And then, a month later, I got the call, and the new liver.
It’s as though I was expecting some great change to come over the world after my transplant. The Salamander had passed through fire, and was evidently expecting some grand new life on the other side of the burn pit. Reality parallels myth only so far though.
It might be a new liver, but it’s the same old world. The moment of miracle happened, and there is a part of me that will never be the same. But the moment of miracle is past, and there’s been no magical transformation, no deep and meaningful epiphanies, nothing that transcends the mundane since that day last May. I am no different now from the me I was last year. And while it was unreasonable to expect anything else, it would seem that I was anticipating something more, at least on a subconscious level. I’m left feeling empty, and at loose ends. In a word, I’m in a funk.
The universe has no reasons, but I am still looking for the reason for everything that has happened to me. The religious would say I’m looking for the hand of God and the will of God in all this. The more pedantic would say I’m looking for meaning where none exists. Both are true, and neither. I just want to make more of my life than I have. If you make your own meaning, I’m doing a lousy job of it.
For someone who thinks they can’t explain themselves very well, you did a remarkably good job…
Ever read "Man’s Search For Meaning" by Frankel?
Good book.
all i keep thinking is something Captain Picard says, "Make it so"…
what do you want? short, but tough question.
It has been a year of healing and adapting. Perhaps your funk and your mind are coming to terms with the fact that that era is passing and you are ready to start on a new journey. This may sound strange but maybe you are mourning the loss of purpose. Your purpose before was to survive. You survived. Now you need to return to living. You need to assimilate the part of you that is a transplant recipient into the rest of you and your life experiences and move on as a total package to your next experience.
Hmmm…maybe your writing class????
~QE
I haven’t been through anything as drastic as you have, and I hope I never will.
But I have been through (potentially) life-changing surgery.
It certainly changed my life (as yours has too) but it didn’t change me (not immediately anyway).
I am what I am through a combination of my basic qualities and my responses to life events, large and small.
My basic qualities I inherited or acquired through the usual childhood processes.
My responses to life are really the meat of it all because that’s the part I can control.
They are the essence of my life, the part that gives it meaning.
"We needed to stop asking ourselves about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. . . . Therefore, it was necessary for us to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer." – Viktor Frankl
Take care
_|m/ ADM
((((((hugs)))))))
This will sound strange saying this….but I really understand where you are coming from.