Rain falls softly
Outside my window
Living feels so easy

Close my eyes
Spread my wings
Reach for the sky
Aloft in flight

Darkness pales
In the shadow
Of this light

Where broke
Is no longer
The shape of
My heart

On my visit last Wednesday, he was very happy with the x-ray results, in that my bone is healing nicely, just as it should, with the nightly bone stimulator treatments, but he was concerned that the wound was not healing as it should, and so sent me to the wound care specialist.

Very nice doctor and RN treated me yesterday at hospital; removed the dead area of tissue so that the skin can now properly heal from the inside out. Showed hubby the proper way to clean and dress the wound daily, and sent me home with a bag full of supplies, until the insurance reviews and approves the necessity of providing supplies to me. They also spoke of skin grafting they think will be necessary once the wound has had a couple weeks to heal.

While all this sounds simple and effective, I’m looking at the calendar and counting down the days until January 1st, when my insurance coverage starts all over and a $5000 deductible must be met before the insurance actually kicks in and starts paying for anything, and wondering just how much healing they can get done in the next twelve days; because after that, I’m on my own, whether they like it or not.

This past week the insurance rep came to the office, went over selected coverage, explained the new premiums and such and sent me away with a signed document showing that my 24 annual premium deductions will total $10,500 for 2010. Add the $5000 deductible to that I will be paying a whopping and nauseating $15,500 next year for health insurance!

That’s Fifteen THOUSAND five hundred dollars for health insurance…

FUCK!

Now, before anyone starts in on me, I am well aware how thankful I should be that I work for a company who is even offering health insurance, and I am very grateful; but still…

My husband gave me a gentle reality check when he reminded me of my mother’s unexpected trip to the ER when she was here in November to take care of me and help out immediately after my surgery. She was having belly issues and when she called her doctor in Cincy they told her to get to the hospital STAT. Turns out she has diverticulitis and was experiencing her very first flare. Welcome to the club little mama!

Anyway, she just received the bill from the hospital a week ago, of which her insurance covered completely, outlining each and every expense incurred during her little five hour visit and it was $7300. YOWAZ!

Okay, so twenty grand for health insurance might not be a drop in the bucket of overall expenses we could incur in the span of a year, but damn that’s a lot of my money! Still, I would prefer to select my own coverage and my own physicians rather than have the government do it for me.

Sometimes I just want to be a kid again…

It was the day I had anticipated, even before the surgery; the day I would come out of my cast and take my life back. Having spent two weeks locked within the confines of my own walls, seeing the outside world through limited squares of glass; the same view each day, changing significantly given the time of day or night I happened to look out.

I refused to take the medicine, preferring a clear head to an ease in my pain; at least for this day. I emerged into the world canopied by ancient oaks, and the air, though warm and heavy with humidity, felt good and inviting upon my flesh. By the time I made it down the steps, across the walk and to the car in the drive, the first wave of nausea began to assail. Out on the road my head started to spin until I rested my chin on my chest, forced to close my eyes.

Everything familiar; sights and sounds, I had not been part of for so long, yet it went on without me, without any change. Only I was different in this realm; my mind, my body, my thoughts and my purpose; having little to no effect outside my own walls.

A humbling, if not depressing realization, when ones reach gives the illusion of being so broad.

Hours later the cast was removed, my leg no longer my own; as if it were not an extension of my living body; foreign, limp, vulnerable, weak and painful in its numbing healing. And the tears came hard and fast. For I had built up my hopes, created my own beliefs, that I would walk out of that office, my life once more my own. But it didn’t happen like that; didn’t even come close.

And so I sit propped against my pillows, darkness outside my windows; crutches always by my side, leg elevated at all times. Restricted in every way, a new cast worse than the first; more painful, more confining, urging healing of a different manner. Pain in different places, nerves coming back to life; sending lightening bolts of electric heat careening to my toes.

And as I sit, I ponder and I wonder…what in the world was I thinking? Feeling sorry, completely helpless, wanting just my life back; screaming inside my mind, what the hell have I done?!

Then the phone rang and I answered; the voice on the other end never having before called me. “How in the world did you know it was me?” he said. “I’d know that voice anywhere” I answered; my grandfather reaching out from the other side of the world, to see how I was doing. And I realized in that moment that my reach is broader than I could have imagined, and comes to rest in all the right places.

She doesn’t seek his memory, it just comes creeping; and when it does, that’s all there is.

Its nothing to do with fear or inspiration; building a fan base that was there long before he was; or anything at all for matter of fact. For who would dream of seeking such hurt.

Its simply a means of soul survival; an attempt to heal, her wounds on her own. Purging her being in the form of words; bloodletting her system of his poison, his disease. Being caught in the death trap, he sets and springs.

His desperation for reprieve, amounting to nothing; empty words of apology and pleas of forgiveness. He gobbles her words and his ego grows, waiting for Twitter to tell him there’s more.

His mantra; a worn out stanza touting suicidal tendencies, despair and angst; deviously reaching out, spewing his seed deep into the core of one vulnerable victim after another. Setting his life on cruise control; riding the tides at the expense of others; completely void of moral conscience. Reveling in his cunning; laughing yass…Yass…YASS!!!

Glorifying and romanticizing his untimely demise; misunderstood soul, plagued to the point of suicide; lamented by the masses, singing his praises; his spirit rising, watching from above. Egomaniac, if ever there was. Imagining himself, even in death; the center of attention, in the form of ash.

What he didn’t equate in the miles obsessively tracked, was the road itself reaching up; in the cloak of darkness, snatching his pathetic ass. There would be no bright light, no tunnel of peace; only a blazing ball of fire, an eternity of scorching heat.

The spell broken at the moment of death; his pact with the devil signed and sealed; damaged souls once broken, now healed. A fitting adieu; to one who once declared that Karma is but a word…

~ Hippocrates

I considered her proposition momentarily, but in the end decided it just wasn’t worth the wasted time and emotion, not to mention that of the pain. No, there was no going back, not now that I’d come so far; perhaps for some this was the answer, but not for me; not any more.

Too many lifetimes spent built on lies; having had my fill of traditional thinking. Not quite certain what the answer yet is, but refusing to go back to the way it was; with so-called doctors all harboring god-complexes, anxious to get their hands on you; fuck with your head, dredge up the past, reduce you to rubble and call it healing.

“Ah, but you run in circles inside your mind; thoughts that won’t stop, driving you blind; and still you keep running, closer to the edge, you won’t slow and yet you refuse to look back. Don’t you see what you’re doing, lost in this maze; it’s quite clear you’re holding out hope, for a miracle or a sage; perhaps a keen philosopher to enlighten as you find your way…”

I held up my hand and told her to “Stop!”

Enough I’ve had of fools and sages, and let us not forget wanna-be revolutionary thinkers; doing nothing but rehashing and pondering the thoughts of other great minds; having no faith, no ability to love, nor the courage to grasp that which is their own; far too busy obsessing the condition of life, listening to the voices that haunt their own minds; not giving a damn, or too self-absorbed to recognize, the damage caused in the wake of self-fulfilling process.

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m doing okay; certain even that one day I’ll again find my way; without the influence, guidance or interference of another. Now if you don’t mind, please return to the lake, leave me in peace and don’t again show your face.”

Shrouded in a veil of mist, Alsyna vanished just as quickly as she appeared. I turned to make my way back toward the cabin, when something on the ground shimmered and caught my attention. I walked slowly to the waters edge, bent to retrieve the item off the ground; only to find myself standing in the moonlight, with an all-too-real key resting in my hand…

There is no truth nor are there any lies; only our own personal interpretations of how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. It wasn’t until she reached this point of clarity that she was able to set herself free; a butterfly on the draft of a solitary breeze.

Fuck weaning…she quit cold turkey and had been cruising along just fine; focusing and channeling her own energy; aligning her chakras; becoming one with the universe and when necessary, curing her pain with chi-gong. She was pleased with her progress, pleased with her self for taking this step; this monumental step on her path to healing.

“Well, what the hell happens when you have another episode?” he paused only long enough to take a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what happens, that’s when I call your doctor and tell him to deal with you…”

Episode; defined as moments when she becomes a crazy bitch; when the shit gets to be too much and she blows her stack, says what’s on her mind, what she thinks, what she feels; even if it’s not what people want to hear; fueled by anger, fear, frustration and overall hatred; for being forced to set her dreams aside and play a part in a game prescribed by society; a game in which she no longer wants to be a pawn.

He walked out without another word, she turned and walked to the bathroom, opened the medicine chest, shook out two blue pills, popped them in her mouth and chewed with malicious intent; savoring the painful bite that assaulted her mouth then swallowed without so much as a drop of water; wanting the bitter taste to linger.

She turned off the light, made her way down the hall, climbed in bed, set the alarm and called it another day.