From 2019: Sitting Still On A Friday (6.10.19)

More evidence that sometimes something good comes from something bad:

 Last week Sherilyn was not feeling well with a pretty good cough and general malaise and so I got to work making a vat of chicken soup for her.  This is what I do whenever any one of us is sick as a pot of my very garlicky chicken soup has been known to cure most ills.

Then I got the idea to mix up a batch of fresh juice for her and us, too.  The more vitamins, the better, right?  But I didn't want to drag out the juicer because cleaning that thing after usage is a nightmare, so I decided to use the Ninja thing with the big attachment.

 This is really boring so far but here comes the good part.

As I was attempting to assemble the blade attachment it somehow slipped right out of my hand and I don't know what happened next but one or two seconds later I became very aware that a very significant amount of blood was gushing from my right wrist.

I was pretty sure I had somehow just managed to slice my own wrist, especially based on the amount of blood that was exiting my hand area.
(Note:  the blades of things that cut things - food processors, etc. - are vicious. Please take the utmost care when using one.)

Luckily, it turned out that it wasn't my wrist but the very bottom of the heel of my hand.  

So, close...but no cigar.
I called JP and he rushed home and said "you need stitches" and I said "like hell I do" because part of my PTSD is medical-related and the idea of going to the hospital for stitches is worse than almost slicing your own wrist.

So we applied a lot of pressure and cleaned and bandaged it and all was well for about five hours until I was out in the gazebo. I wanted to lie down out there and watch the stars but when I went to lay down, I stretched my hand and re-opened the wound.

More pressure, more bandages, but still no hospital.  
PTSD makes you very, very stubborn.

The next day, Friday, I knew that if the cut opened again I would have to go get stitches and since the idea of that was genuinely terrifying, I decided that I would spend the entire day sitting perfectly still, with my hand bandaged and elevated.  And that's what I did.  

I just sat there, all day and night, counting each hour as it passed, letting the healing happen without me doing anything that would interrupt the process.

Sitting still for an entire day is not as bad as it sounds.

The truth is that my mind always has to be occupied with something so I thought it was going to be a dreadful day of me feeling edgy but it turned out to be just the opposite: I wound up enjoying my own company. I enjoyed getting reacquainted with myself.  

Obviously I did a lot of thinking.  There's been some stuff weighing on me and I'd been procrastinating thinking about that stuff in any depth but I just let my thoughts take me there on Friday and because I had no other distractions going on - I couldn't type so no computer - my thoughts were clearer. 

I struggle often with boredom.  My brain operates on overtime all the time and I have to be occupied but I'm very picky about what occupies me and when I run out of quality pre-occupations, in comes the blackness of boredom and the accompanying anxiety.  Yet on Friday, when I knew I had to sit still and do nothing but let myself heal, I was fine.  More than fine.  No panic, no angst, a delicious low-key calm.  I just was.  (I experienced this same thing before when we lived in Annapolis and a hurricane came through, leaving us without power for 10 days.)

 

So of course there's a big, new-agey message kind of thing going on here about being still to let yourself heal even if you have no visible wound(s).  To get reacquainted with your self, your real self, the one buried under the cacophony of every day living.  To do this without impetus.  In other words, you don't need something bad to happen to reconnect with yourself.

 Real life is not out there in the noise.  I've known that forever and because of that, it's one of things that's always made me different and make people look at me like I've got three heads.  Some of the things people take so seriously have always struck me as ridiculous...but that's a story for another time.

I'm sure my hand wound is going to leave a nice scar as it was a really deep cut.
Maybe each time I look at that scar I'll remember Friday and my calmness and clear thinking.

Maybe I'll be reminded and will remember to take the time to write all those stories I keep saying are for another time.