Unsettled things

 January 28, 2021

 

I began the day by making lists. Two lists only.

 

One of things unsettled. This one was needed as so little feels stable right now, and when a long list emerged, I made another of things settled enough to be feel stable — this one so I wouldn’t feel too unsettled.

 

In the second I included things like having a stable roof over my head and knowing where the next meal comes from etc. And even with all of that the list of unsettled things was twice as long as the settled. Just one of those times.

 

Yesterday I went to see the doc about my potassium report. The value was even higher than the previous two times, but the sample had homolysed so it was likely a false high. Yet the value had been high in November in a non-lysed sample and again in December. They poked me again and I left feeling unnerved. Enough already I thought, let’s just get on with this. 

 

Things happen, health issues multiply as we age, and they have to be dealt with. But chasing clarity on this potassium stuff has been so shifty. If it is high it can also be due to an error during the test where the platelets break up and potassium is released into the plasma, or if the sample is lysed then it is likely to be high. But if it indeed is high then one cannot ignore it as there might be underlying conditions. This is my fourth test in six weeks, so I wondered — when does the doc decide that it is not high but just error in the test and let it go, or high and needs further investigation? I guess the doc is unsure too.

 

But it feels so blurry that it left me quite unsettled and unable to focus on much. Particularly because this same thing has been going on, and on since late November. I felt I needed to get out of that repetitive circling urgently.

 

I don’t know about you but when something doesn’t resolve for a while, something that needs follow-up or action, then I find it hard to keep waiting for clarity. 

 

My mind kind of dissolves easily and increasing effort is needed to do focused tasks. The forehead starts tightening and the heart beats in a way that I become very aware of it. Old injuries feel recent and I feel listless. I want to curl up in a ball and withdraw, shut out time and the world, until I have some answers. 

 

I could, of course, call a friend and talk it through, or just be distracted from it for a while by healthy (meditation, drawing or training) or unhealthy (wine or tv binging) means. But since I have been reading Rilke’s Letters I have decided to follow his belief…

The more fully we experience what is difficult, the more it pulls and drives us with its weight toward the center of life. And life’s gravitational field is oriented so centripetally that only if someone makes himself light by artificial means could he become estranged from it. 

…and stay with it, in solitary, let it develop and assimilate within. 

 

To some, from the outside, this process which I seem to prefer to process my difficulties may seem like brooding, and sometimes when it takes very long to move beyond heavy and into the feeling of being-part-of-the-whole, that ultimately does happen, I too wonder if I am merely brooding and brewing instead of finding easier ways of letting it be? Question unanswered right now.

 

So, though my list of unsettled things is considerably longer than the stable list, for now I remain in the realm of the unsettled. 

 

My laptop visited the apple doc this week and needs a thorough check-up. I have decided to let it just go for as long as it needs too without a replacement. Disorienting it will be, to the unsettledness it will add, but it is something to feel and perhaps write about the next time I meet it again.