Monday Musings: "My (un)fair Lady Life"

It has been a few weeks since I have done a Monday Musing post, I think I might cut back to doing it every other week at the most, at least for a little while. Today I am discussing my poem “My (un)fair Lady Life”. I wrote this poem around the age of 17, when I was experiencing unrelenting headaches that felt like a vice grip squeezing my skull to the point where it might explode at any second. I was going to doctor after doctor with no answers, even being told that I was making up my symptoms. Needless to say it was a hopeless time for me. Luckily I did eventually find the right doctors who were able to give me the diagnosis of “Chiari Malformation” as well as “Ehlers Danlos Syndrome” (I would later find out that I also have Mast Cell Activation Disorder, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, Gastroparesis and Sphincter of Oddi). Having these diagnosis doesn’t change anything, nothing I have can be “cured” so to speak. Yes I can treat the many symptoms, but that is a juggling act in itself that yields sub-par results at best. My (un)fair) Lady Life is about how my illness, the pain I feel everyday controls my life. All those years ago I looked into the mirror, the same mirror I look in every morning still, and thought about the girl that I once was. I wondered if that girl even existed anymore. This poem is all about how I am not who I once was because of all the pain and heartbreak that life has bestowed upon me. Life is not fair, but I put the “un” part of my title in parenthesis because we like to pretend that it is. I write in the second stanza “The scars she wears on her over optimistic heart are more brutal that she would ever admit”, this reflects my title because I am saying that the optimism I have is kind of a mask or a denial of the real circumstances of my life. I am optimistic because I am afraid that if I am not I won’t be able to deal with any more pain. In the third stanza I write “The relentless pain won’t break her, she screams this mantra daily. She is a liar…the pain controls everything.” No matter what I do the pain controls all actions in my life. When I am not in pain (read:bearable pain) I am always thinking everything through because I know with just one stupid movement I could end up in pain for days or weeks, pain that is something I can barely handle. As I am writing this post I am in excruciating pain. I hurt my left shoulder…again. I have had two surgeries in my right shoulder and one in my left already, and yet here I sit again in the same horrible pain. The worst part is that I didn’t even do anything to aggravate it, the only thing I can think of is that I injured it in my sleep. I feel so angry at my “lady life” because she keeps making me go through the same things over and over again, the same pains that I barely got through the first time. Sometimes it feels like I am in hell or that I must have done something so deserve this treatment…but the truth is I didn’t do anything to deserve it, I don’t deserve it first of all, second of all life isn’t fair for anyone and we each go through our own personal hells. In the last stanza I talk about how people don’t understand. People look at me and I don’t look like I am in pain or that I am ill, so they make judgments and sometimes make snide remarks that I can overhear. I write “She wants to forget the voices that she hears and the ignorance that is tossed around like a child's ball…she knows no one will ever understand.” I chose to use the phrase “child's ball” to describe peoples ignorance, because honestly that is what it feels like to me, it feels like ignorance is just some light thing that people do not even take seriously and misinformation is just thrown around carelessly. Ignorance is why I write these posts, I want to share my experiences so that others can benefit from what I have gone through, that way at least it won’t feel like I have gone through all this agony and pain for nothing.

#mondaymusings #MyunfairLadyLife