april 2020

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“I’m so very tired.
 I had a good streak until recently, maybe two weeks of uninterrupted eight and a half hours of sleep per night. That’s rare for me; one of the bad things that I got from my dad is recurrent insomnias. 
Last night I was kept awake by thoughts of jobs and partners — how self-indulgent of me to have such concerns while the world around me is slowly shutting down.
“I’m so very broken. Psychotherapy on Wednesday and physiotherapy this morning. 
I was asked if things got better; I said maybe, but I can’t really tell. My injured yet functioning meniscus as a metaphor for my mind. 
 I was thinking of Laura, my first dance teacher and her broken meniscus; 
and then Bea, my salsa teacher and cancer survivor; 
and now Yuna, confidante and ballet teacher; 
all of them 
incredibly        strong        women 
who taught my gangly body how to move.
“Dancing is now the only thing I want to do, but my knee is making things difficult, 
or at least frustrating. 
A sad reminder that I will never be a ballet dancer; the muse touched me too late.
“Same with maths:
 it was the only thing I wanted to do, but my brain got in the way and made things frustrating. A sad reminder that I will never be a great mathematician or theoretical physicist or whatever label the Powers that be will gracefully bestow upon me.
“I should do physio for another month, if I can, 
maybe even try zumba again.
 I don’t know about zumba, but I like my physiotherapist. He's nice, his hands are always warm, sometimes soft, dreamlike,
 as if 
one of us
 is slowly drifting        away; 
sometimes it’s painful, but not a nightmare. He is gentle and patient and asks me where it hurts, without shying away ineptly from my         pain.
“I was thinking today
 how it’s so easy to fall in love (cathexis) with therapists, 
be they healing the mind, the body, or some virtual in-between; maybe because they treat you with the kindness and empathy that you crave, yet is being denied to you, 
a scarcity 
fuelled by the toxic ideologies 
of individuality and self-sufficiency. Or
 maybe I should get off this soap-box and admit that it is I who is broken and incapable of self-love, 
and thus needs the kindness of people 
who are paid to offer such kindness, 
just to function.”