“I’m terrible at resting” is what I say when people ask me why I’m out and about even when I’m injured. That’s only partially true. It’s more out of fear that I can’t stay hold up in my room taking it easy, waiting for my body to heal. It’s the most dangerous place for me, because of allure, the temptation of letting go too much.
It’s as if I’m a recovering comfort addict, someone who has fallen into the warm arms of a pillow that refuses to let go. One who spent a good portion of his life avoiding his problems by trying to maximize this happiness through things around him. Many long nights trying to find the meaning in life in the stories of the page or the pixels on the screen but never finding the true fulfillment until I left those things behind and decided to face reality once again.

It’s through knowing this and finding unimpeachable bliss in effort that my current situation becomes so dangerous. It’s easy to slip back into that sphere of comfort, blame my injury for the hours the pass before my eyes that see nothing done. To make excuses for the things that at the moment seem too troubling for me. To fall away and allow all I’ve done to turn to sand and dust so it can become a place to rest my weary head.

It’s hard because I know I need to rest. To allow my body to fix itself from the trauma I have caused. But I’m scared by it, scared that all of what I am may fade away with it like the atrophy of my muscles in my now broken leg. Terrified about the challenges to come and my inablity to act as quickly or as easily. It feels as if my hand’s and back can’t hold all which I find important. Like the bruises I bear live beneath the skin and touched my soul causing it to scream out and stop me because it hurts. I never had these problems when I could chase after my dreams but here I am trying to pick up the pieces of life temporarily fractured by the rain, steel, and concrete.

I feel weak again, at the mercy of the whims of time and body. What I want is peace from myself as this comfortable zone drives these negative feelings inside. It’s something that perpetuates itself and commands that the only way free of these feelings is to fold back into the comfort and push reality aside for just long enough for my problems to go away.

This is no way to live a life, or the way I want my life to go. It’s where I am but not where I will be forever. Tomorrow is a new day for a new reality to rise and that’s where I need to be. In the present, struggling against this feeling, against the hard days and the inactivity that overwhelms me, because at the end of the day fight is worth it no matter how long it takes to win.