Ram Dass calls the body a space suit. It is what was given to us for this lifetime to traverse the humansphere. I have pushed mine to limits without ever being an athlete. I was born with a 60mph out the gate accelerator. Even in 2012, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and spent a year under the torture of the medical profession trying to find the correct dosage of thyroid replacement to get me balanced, I was a force.
My energy level has always been double to triple that of the average human.
But when my space suit falters, that energy dissipates at almost the same pace. I go down hard.
Last Thursday, I went down hard.
The difference is that I now know my body’s vulnerability to illness. I know the only thing that helps me is rest. So for the next 48 hours, I remained horizontal. But on Saturday, I had to rise to take care of some business. I had a workshop with a visiting author. My dog Stella was chewing her body into oblivion. All the things were pushing on me to do.
So I did. I went to Walmart looking for an Elizabethan collar to stop the chew monster. Despite what their website said, they did not have any in stock. A series of calamities ensued, and I wound up at the emergency room with her on Sunday. Where half her body was shaved, meds were administered, and a cone of shame was provided.
On Monday, we both retreated back to our horizontal position. By Tuesday night, all the vulnerable thoughts clouded my thinking – what if I don’t get my energy back, what if I can’t do what I need to do this week, why don’t I care about anything, what if I never care about anything.
“When I was born I donned a spacesuit for living on this plane, it was this body, my space suit, and it had a steering mechanism which is my pre-frontal lobe and all the brain that helps with coordinating and stuff..,” Ram Dass said.
My brain lost faith in my space suit and its ability to heal. By Wednesday, I woke with a clearer mind, and despite the lingering effects in my lungs of whatever virus had kicked my ass, I was vertical and moving forward.
While I was down and out, I thought about those people who suffer, whose space suits have faltered and who live daily with illness. I have great compassion for them. I think of Suleika Jaouad and her long-term illness that she has had to contend with her entire adult life. She leaned into her creativity during her bouts of hospital stays and convalescence. I admire that. I could not muster even the creative notion that I would get better, instead I sank into the darkness of how I could not tolerate my space suit faltering. It took Stella having to go to the emergency room for me to find the compassion I needed for myself and my own vulnerability to illness.
