Try to understand others

YAY

This February is over and we're closer to that most wonderful time of year we call spring!

The time the life that has went dormant wakes up and begins to carry on with it's life. The time when tiny seeds begin to sprout in the warming ground and begin to reach for the sun making new plants to decorate the earth.

The time this ole body will begin to loosen up and shed some of the stiffness and a few of the aches as the sun brings it's warmth. The time this ole mind will begin to cast away the cabin fever and winter doldrums as it spends more time outdoors. Breathing fresh air, strolling in the sun, working in the garden and fields. Listening to the music of the breezes and birds.

Keeping the body limber by moving is tough during the snow covered icy cold days of winter when you know that the slightest slip will bring you pain. When you know that pain could send you to bed to lie flat for several days waiting for the pain to ease enough to breathe without anguish.

Knowing that a tiny two inch slip of one of your feet could have you stuck and looking for help to get back to the house and into a chair or bed.

Fortunately this winter (knock on wood for luck) that has only happened twice. Both only costing me three days or four of being confined to a seat and struggling to walk with two canes. Not eating because of the pain that standing would bring while trying to prepare a meal. Not to mention dreading a trip to the toilet when the body is done with that food...

Days of not even being able to withstand the pain to sit in a seat and watch TV or read a book. Days you can't even sit in a seat and help plow snow. Days where even the thought of walking almost brings tears to your eyes. Days where you struggle for a smile for yourself yet find ways to make others smile with your words when they call or visit.

Time spent recalling days past. Time spent recalling what it was like to have someone to share your life with. To talk to, to cook with in the kitchen, to take walks with while holding hands and sharing schemes and dreams, to play board games with, and yes to have a relationship with.

But the back pain takes that away too.

You really don't know how much you move your back until that movement reminds you with stabs of pain and lasting aches that would rival the worst toothache you can imagine or a broken bone.

And some wonder why I find it easy to be alone. Wonder why I keep a wall, a distance, between myself and women.

Many like to toss around the words “sex doesn't matter”. But in many ways, at many times, it does.

Only when you can no longer do what you once did so easily without thought will you ever realize that.

I hope for you, you never know.

I hope for you to never have to live with so much pain you find the need to “learn” to exist and live. Never have to learn to do what others do naturally.

This has been a really hard post to write. I live with these thoughts in my mind but normally keep them to myself.

I write them with tears welling up in my eyes as I choke them back into the lump in my throat.

I am not looking for sympathy.

And do not want to hear any words of sympathy.

They only cause the mind to dwell longer on what it has to push aside to find it's smile once again.

But many wonder why some like myself find winters so hard to take. Why winters seem to bring us down so badly.

Why we seem to find it so easy to keep some people who want to love us at a distance.

We smile, we laugh, we play. We have learned to do things differently and are darned proud that we can still do most things for ourselves.

But we don't want others to have to share the pain with us.

We've found our new and different ways to be happy and have found new ways of fulfillment. Found there are some things we can live and survive without even though we'd rather not.

We want your life to stay happy and you to always be happy.

I also want anyone else who finds their self in the same or a similar situation to know.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

Now lets get the heck outta here and get back to smiling and playing in this huge playground we call a world.