Till It's Gone

I used the poetics of Joni Mitchell yesterday to illustrate a point. It is nothing new, yet I am amazed at how we forget the message. It is simply this:

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT TILL IT'S GONE. 

My reference was to good health. This, as a result of four days, five including today, where my health has been substantially compromised by a yet to be determined cause. Or causes. I feel like a big yellow taxi took away my good old health. 

I am being pro-active. I have slept an average of ten hours the last two nights, I have drank gallons of water, eliminated the demon alcohol, ate good, gone to the ER, scheduled PT and massage visits, researched tetanus, chest pain and inner ear disorders and listened to the advice of many a well-meaning friend. 

Still this malaise lingers like a winter drizzle in the Northwest. I want to run, but can barely walk. I want to ride, but tossed my training wheels five decades ago. At the very least I want to feel healthy, fit and energetic. I crave vitality. I miss the feeling of capability, of confidence. Of being in complete charge (of counting crows).

I am willing to be a patient patient, but not knowing what to do to reverse the stasis direction is both frustrating and frightful. It adds to the anxiety that was suggested could be at the very heart of the matter. I miss desperately what is now gone. 

I will take another day of complete rest in the hope that tomorrow brings some sign of improvement. In the meantime, please take a look at the good things in your life and do what you can to ensure their longevity. 

Before paradise becomes a parking lot.