Metaphor

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I believe that many of the illnesses we contract are physical metaphors for a psychological reality.  Our psyches are attempting to impose order on a chaotic world.   Illness breaks into our lives and sometimes fractures it into pieces.   Bronchitis has left me breathless for over a month now.  I no longer have the air intake ability required for my daily 3-mile walk.  I grieve the loss.

At a time in my life when so few options seem to be available, I have trouble breathing and filling my lungs with wonderful, cool air.    Life seems to have gotten a vicious hold on me and it is hard to breathe.  This comes as no surprise.  I am impaled by the shards of my inner landscape.   I feel squeezed by circumstance.
There is no breathing room.

But, what do I do about it?  Beyond the obvious, seeking medical care, how do I process this illness, this slowing down, this "confinement" into something useful?  Illness feels like a prison but I can "know why the caged bird sings".

Years ago, when still a child, I noticed that I was more apt to get sick in times of stress.  Every Christmas vacation found me with a cold or worse.  One year it was a hideous layer of chicken pox.  All that condensed family time was an incubator for illness.  The expectation of the holiday was too great. Something had to give.  What was given in return was a bad cold or flu or . . .a hideous layer of chicken pox.

Illness comes and causes us to slow down.  Not only does the body need rest and a chance to recuperate, the mind needs a break as well, a time to really look at all that is unhealthy in one's life.  It's an opportunity to make changes.

My body is telling me it needs breathing room.  It tells me that I need to slow down and figure out how to get better.  It's telling me that I need to give myself room. . . the mental space to be myself especially when under so much pressure to be someone else.  It's really the only healthy thing to do.