The Wall

This was a guided imagery to help explain to others how I was feeling approaching my hip replacement this day last year.

As I said, this is a guided imagery.  Almost like a meditation only it offers the image/feelings to focus on.  If you want to read it the way it would really be done, read it really slowly and focus your imagination on all that it talks about.  Try to really become part of the story.

 

This was written before my hip replacement last year.  It's now 9:13 a.m. on June 26th, so I think I actually was in surgery this time last year.  If not I was very close.  Happy Birthday, Fluffy!  (My friends named my ceramic hip Fluffy, purely for ironical reasons.)

 

Picture credit to VisionsofAmerica/Joe Sohm.

 

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            You wake from another normal night's sleep.  With a grunt you stagger out of your bed and go about your normal morning wakeup routine.  You are in great pain down by your hips, but it has been so present over the last few weeks you barely notice.  You are even capable of smiling and giggling when you trip gracefully up the stairs.

            You go through the day with many of those smile and braces.  At one point, you drive a little ways from your home to meet up with a friend.  The two of you walk all around.  A few times you have to pause and hold your leg but it is normal to you, something you expect.  Your friend is patient and jokes.  You are thankful of the company, of the understanding.  When you stumble she gingerly helps you gain footing, pulling your leg for your 'clumsiness.'  You throw a smirk her way and reply with a witty comment.

            Your high lasts through the afternoon and into the evening.  The daemons come out from the walls, from under the pillows, from out of the monitor...  You wonder briefly where your smiles went before your insecurities rush over you in waves bordering on tsunamis.

            With a last push, you try to shove them off with logic.  "I will be fine."  "It will be different, but not bad."  "I will wake up to friends."  You remember hours of detached thinking over your own situation and the situation of others', but none of it helps.

            You picture yourself running at your top speed.  Your injury drags you down, but you persist.  You run until you cannot breathe and you know you are able to continue simply because it is a dream of sorts.  Your sides flush with pain.  Your face is pounding with blood as your legs continue hitting harsh floor or ground.  You continue--you cannot stop.  You know it is best for you, no matter how much pain.

            You sneak a peak over your shoulder to view all that you have once known.  Everything is laced in pain, true, but it is what you know.  This life is your home.  So much support, so much love...  They are all cheering on this run of yours.  They do not know of the pain it causes you unless you tell them.  You cannot, however, slow down.  You are not the creator of time and thus do not control it.  Your speed is not your decision.

            A brick wall looms ahead.  You remember this part from previous runs.  Forever it is a wall.  You are funning as fast as you can to one ominous, completely solid brick wall standing in your path.  You fantasize over what rests behind that wall.  It is too high to see over, too solid to see through, too sturdy to see under.  Behind this wall you know there is joy and acceptance all the same, a whole new--different--life.  Your pain will be so much lessened!  It is unimaginable, knowing how your leg lags so now.

            There is the problem of the wall.  As hard as you imagine, you cannot see beyond it.  You have faced these walls before.  You know that, when you hit them, they give way and you are free to seek your future.  You know that the future through the wall is always misty and slow in coming upon leaving the wall's grasp, but you know it is there.

            Until then, there is the wall.  You are running full-force toward it.  Mentally, you know it will yield.  Your body is not so sure.  Your spirit is suspicious.  Still, you can handle that.

            But...what will you wake up as?  Who will you be?  Where will the differences be?  What will it feel like?  You are entirely unsure.  The only surety is that you will hit that wall and something--many things--will change.

            All at once you long for a surety, something you can count on besides contact with that approaching wall.  You remember the warmth of a friendly hug.  You remember the comfort of reassuring but not self-righteous or self-important words.  You remember taking to heart the love of others who do not pretend to know more of your run than you do.

            All at once you yearn for it all.  Back in your true body, beyond the running, you hug your knee.  It is poor substitute for the hug you imagine.  The air around you is not a loving friend; it is just a present observer.  It is detached.  Where are your companions now?  Where is your reassuring contact?

            Your mind, body, and spirit forever remember the wall.  It can never be wiped from the brain.  It will not leave until you are past it.  In fact, for every moment you draw closer it grows more present.  Not more solid or more sturdy, but you begin to feel it more with every breath you take.  You are growing closer.

            Soon, you will hit.  Soon, you remember, you will slide through.  Soon, you know, you will wake up.

            What happens then?

Reviews

[Lynn Mariposa]

As a writer, I would say "The Wall" embodies the best of prose writing. "The Wall" has a rich, multi-faceted personality with emotion, humor, and struggle all vividly portrayed.

On a personal level, I was deeply moved by "The Wall". And struck by my own ignorance. I did not know about what a hip replacement entails. My Grandma had her hip replaced and I saw her hobbling on a cane but I never knew anything more. I learned so much from "The Wall" and am thankful for your sharing.