Recently, I learned an unexpected and painful lesson. As I sit here writing these words, I’m reminded by the TENS unit attached to my hip. (A TENS unit emits electrical impulses that helps to numb the site of the pain.) I’m also very thankful to Dr. Smothers for helping ease the pain, day by day, and in fact, am looking forward to seeing him later this morning.
So I have just the tiniest inkling of what folks with chronic pain endure on a daily basis. It colors your whole world and determines what, if anything, you do that day.
I also recently learned how devastating and just downright sad isolation is. Danny and I were immunized in February and March of this year. I’m so thankful we took the immunizations, because when in late June, I somehow contracted COVID, it was a very mild case. I just felt lousy and tired, and I sat around way too much, hence the pinched nerve. Danny was soooooo disappointed to have to isolate from me at the cabin. (Did you note my sarcasm in the last sentence?)
I soon found that I didn’t love my time alone near as much as I thought I did. I believe this whole pandemic experience has affected folks’ psych a lot more than we realize. I learned to be more thankful for true friends, as Glenda McEntire and Teresa Lee were at my beck and call on anything I needed or wanted, and Tad Lemke mowed our grass in Danny’s absence. LeAnne Eaton sent my favorites, cukes and tomatoes, from the gardens at Eaton Produce. Danny brought my provisions, including a cup of McDonald’s coffee.
I learned that we are not meant to travel this journey on earth alone. I’m not a TV watcher, but found myself watching TV a lot during my quarantine. I love a quote from the one and ONLY good movie I could find. It was called ‘The Same Kind of Different as Me”. It’s based on a true story about homelessness and what happens when the Lord intervenes in a life.
“I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. …………. But I found out everybody’s different - the same kind of different as me. We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home.” ~ Denver Moore
If I learned no other lesson from the unscheduled time alone, is that we all need each other as we all are “just workin our way toward home”.