What is our purpose?
-CHAPTER 4-
One of the purposes of life is not to become old, but to become as old as you can get.
Do not regret growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.
My first realization of this was after I wrote “Scared and Stiff” in one go. Looking back on it, it was an article made from an angry place in my mind that had to come out in the way that it did. I never intended to put it online, but for reasons yet unknown to me it felt like it should be online. Maybe it would help someone else who would read it and put things in perspective. But now I see it as an unexpected way for me to start processing grief, because my hands hurt to much from arthritis to express myself like I used to do through music.
Writing Scared and Stiff was at the Anger chapter of the well known Five-Stages of grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
After letting all the words flow out of my brain through my hands onto the screen without any mental filter, I felt a burden being lifted from my mind and I was able to move forward from the place where I was stuck. You will never know in what way you will express it. Some go on a drinking binge, others go looking for a fight or completely shut themselves in. I used to be able to put it in musical notes, but very unexpectedly it ended up in words on a screen.
The first stage, that preceded the anger writing session, was denial. Which to this day I still deny to have had.
I feel I am in a different place right now. One evening of typing like a mad man was enough to get the anger out of the way that was being build up by all my denying.
So if we follow the map, I should have arrived at the Bargaining station. And I love a good bargain. Who doesn’t? I think, as I am typing this, that I am there. Bargain hunting with my new friends “What If” and “If Only”.
I am in the process of getting a second opinion on the third opinion on the fourth prognosis, that the fifth doctor gave me. It sounds like a joke, but when I look back at all the hospital visits I had last year, it is spot on.
All the research about the medication they want to give me, and treatment options available to me were overwhelming. But talking openly about it and sharing my doubts and questions with other people, has put my mind more at ease with the outlook that heavy meds might be my way to go forward.
The big question that haunts my mind right now is, should you take a heavy drug to halt your disease with the cost of long term side effects, while knowing that doing nothing might just be as harmful.
When you surrender to a decision made by society, friends, family or doctors; it absolves you of responsibility. But you still need to live with the outcome.
So is it better to be brave and make a carefully considered decision yourself, so you can own it?
I am not looking forward to the stage after I am done bargain hunting with “What If” and “If Only”; Stage four: Depression. Which by itself sounds like severe diagnosis.
It is the stage where grief enters our lives on a deeper level, and it feels as though it will last forever. I hope that, like the anger stage, I can type it out of my mind in one session, like the Pensieve that Dumbledore used in the Harry Potter novels, to take out a specific thought, so that it won’t trouble your mind anymore and frees up space for new ideas. Just like Elisabeth and David wrote: “If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.”
And finally there is acceptance. I used to think that it would mean having a notion of being okay with your grief. At the start of the whole arthritis trip I started doing meditation, which gave me a new insight into acceptance; Acceptance does not mean admitting defeat. It means that you have clarity of mind to know when to take action and when to let go.
Now that all sounds well thought out and obvious when you’re reading it or thinking about it, but living through them is a whole different matter. Just as I am seeing with my journey, you can’t predict what shape it will take for you. Only the rough outlines of what can be expected.
As it turns out, David Kessler came up with a sixth stage for his new book; Finding Meaning. I’m not sure if this will be the psychotherapy version of Finding Nemo, but I will try to meditate on it.
So is it better to be brave and make a carefully considered decision and try to get as old as I can get, so I can own it?
Yes. Bravely so.
I am starting to realize that at some point in the near future, I will have to start the medication with all it’s feared long term side effects and stop with the bargaining and procrastinating.
My disillusioned self imagined life expectancy of 890 years might be cut a bit shorter. So I really need to find out what other things give me joy and purpose besides making music, before I get less older than I imagined. Or find a way to upload my mind into the Matrix.
After finally finding my Acceptance, I think my sixth stage will not be Finding Meaning, but probably Moriturism.
Moriturism. (noun). “The insomnia-borne jolt of awareness that you will die, that these passing years aren’t just scenes from a dress rehearsal, rounds of an ongoing game or chapters in a story you’ll be telling later.” — John Koenig
But not yet...
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