I am often amazed at the little things that can break down my defences. Yesterday, for example, I had a frustrating day in the studio, trying to paint for the first time in four years. It turns out that I can't just pick up where I left off. As with all creative processes, you have to work that particular muscle. After four years, I have to content myself with starting slow. And the canvas is further away. Well actually I'm further away, on account of my knees. Or drip-catchers as I now call them.
Anyway, having had such a frustrating day was not the real problem. I was just down. Fed up with everything. It's certainly not the first time I have felt generally rotten, and when I do it makes all the defensive glass half filling exercises seem like completely pointless delusion.
So, I decided to write the day off, and I headed for bed. I entered the bedroom to see my shoes lying where I had thrown them earlier in the evening. They had landed thus:
As if I had just stepped out of them. OK, maybe it was just me, but this is my point. It's sometimes these little things that can make an average bad day into a painful re-examination of all the bad things about spinal cord injury.
With the somewhat better view from the other side of a good night's sleep, I can clearly see that the shoes are in the position I may have adopted after a long and very bumpy bicycle ride. But that's the great thing about all of this. Should it choose to, my mind can always find a way of draining that half-full glass...
Anyway, having had such a frustrating day was not the real problem. I was just down. Fed up with everything. It's certainly not the first time I have felt generally rotten, and when I do it makes all the defensive glass half filling exercises seem like completely pointless delusion.
So, I decided to write the day off, and I headed for bed. I entered the bedroom to see my shoes lying where I had thrown them earlier in the evening. They had landed thus:
As if I had just stepped out of them. OK, maybe it was just me, but this is my point. It's sometimes these little things that can make an average bad day into a painful re-examination of all the bad things about spinal cord injury.
With the somewhat better view from the other side of a good night's sleep, I can clearly see that the shoes are in the position I may have adopted after a long and very bumpy bicycle ride. But that's the great thing about all of this. Should it choose to, my mind can always find a way of draining that half-full glass...
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