Years ago, when I was still married, my brother-in-law was over at our house, and he asked me for a pen. I produced a handful of pens and asked him to pick one, which he did. As he used it, it ran out of ink. I looked at the ink level indicator on the side, and said, �I thought there was a little bit of ink left in here, but I guess not,� and I offered him a new pen.

He said to me, �I�ve never had a pen that ran out of ink before.�

I said, �Really?!� as if I was surprised, but I wasn�t that surprised. I went through pen�s like rich, old ladies went through wrinkle cream. That is to say, I used to write a lot. Embarrassingly a lot.

While in B&N over the weekend, in the bargain priced books area, I found some nicely priced and very pretty notebooks. I hesitated before I bought one, wondering to myself, �Will this be another thing taking up space in my house with no use?� I eventually figured that the potential risk was minimal and the potential gain was astronomical and bought the notebook.

I started writing in it this evening. About ten minutes before I started this entry, actually. At first, I was concerned about the state my penmanship, after all this time. The first couple of lines went beautifully. I even started thinking to myself, �It is too bad that no one writes longhand, anymore. I would love to have more opportunities to show off my lovely penmanship.� Then my hand started cramping, I started to get impatient, and the penmanship started to degrade. Soon, I was thinking, �Geez, I hope I can read this later.�

By the time I got to the end of the page, I was getting so bored, that I was starting to get that sleepy feeling that I get when I�m reading anything that�s really boring. My own writing was putting me to sleep.

So, back to the computer. At least here, I can clip along at a pace that allows me to get my thoughts out before they start making me sleepy.

That doesn�t mean I�ve given up, of course. That�s just one of those things that require endurance building.

I did hit the ground running when I first started keeping a journal, all those decades ago, and probably produced ten pages on my first night. Then again, I grew up before computers were mandatory, and I had the fire-y passion of a school-girl crush egging me on.

His name was Don. He played the drums. What was his last name?

Another thing that requires endurance building is learning to be OK. I had to remind myself of this again as I was getting impatient with myself. I meditated for 40 minutes earlier this evening, and then I went to take a bath. While I was in there, I could tell that I was clearly not feeling calm and centered. This upset me, which made me feel even less calm and centered.

I know that prior to tonight, I�ve said to myself that my issues are likely to be life long issues. I will always revisit the same stuff, and it will always throw me off balance.

I�m not sure if I ever really totally believed that, though. I think that while, intellectually, I recognized that some problems just never go away, I still held out the hope it is possible to reinvent oneself to the extent that the demons will no longer find one recognizable.

But, right now, that doesn�t matter. The demons have found me, and they�re sitting on my head. When one is in that particular situation, the only thing really concerning one is getting the damn things off ones head. Long-term planning comes later.

Recognizing the longevity of my problems only matters when I�m feeling good because that�s when I�m going to become complacent and let them waltz right back in.

What bothered me most was after sitting for 40 minutes, I felt crappy, maybe even crappIER.

There�s that whole concept of, �what hurts going in, hurts coming out,� but I think that�s most often applied to detoxifying fasts, and usually said to stop people from suing, after they turn into a piles of goo on their bathroom floors after 5 days of not eating.

But, I�ve heard it applied to healing and meditation, too, and I�ve experienced that. And, it sucked. And, why do I have to keep doing it over and over and over again? Oh yeah, because my problems are lifelong issues.

I think that maybe sometimes I cling to that explanation to make myself feel better when nothing else is making me feel better. If nothing else, I can say that I�m making progress.

That is the thing about spiritual healing of any kind, it requires faith. It requires that you keep putting one foot in front of the other, without any guarantee that it�s going to get you anywhere.

So, right now, I�m in a slightly different situation than my usual situation. First of all, this is going to sound odd, but I have a really strange reaction to illness, especially mysterious illness, when it�s in other people. It makes me exceptionally nervous, which, in the past, has caused me to flip out, in ways that would mystify even the most experienced crazy-people-wranglers. These days, I just sit around and nervously think to myself, �This is making me exceptionally nervous. Act normal. Act normal. Act normal. Casual greeting. Oh yeah, that almost sounded convincing.�

It probably stems from the fact that my mother�s illness was categorized as an illness, and a mysterious illness, too. Does knowing that help me? A lot less than you�d think it would. Being taught from an early age that my mother was �sick� taught me just how bad �sick� can get.

We�re currently on week two of Adam�s mysterious illness, and I was already in nervous breakdown mode early in week one. It�s gone on for so long, that I�ve moved beyond nervous breakdown mode, and entered lets-hold-it-together-the-best-we-can mode, which only happens because nervous breakdown mode is too impractical for daily living.

Obviously, not being able to deal with mysterious illnesses in other people is not acceptable, especially as I age, and my friends and family are most likely going to age, too.

This is the real reason that I struggled with the idea of becoming a healer. Sure, I still believe that in many past lives, I was more the sort of person that inflicted wounds, rather than healed them, but that doesn�t change the fact I have a neurosis about sick people.

Yesterday, he was still feeling bad, so he went back to the doctor. He had a bunch more vials of blood taken, and didn�t pass out, this time. He made an appointment with a specialist, but his GP is waiting on the blood test results to decide whether or not he needs to call the specialist and beg for a favor, asking him to get Adam in sooner than the current appointment, which is two weeks away.

Just writing that, I almost passed out from anxiety.

I had yesterday off. I got up early and went to the morning zumba class. I came home, I did my strength training. I did the dishes, I did the cat boxes, I took a shower, I did the laundry. I restrained myself from vacuuming all the floors, since Adam was home from the doctor by this time. All this while still quite sore after my weekend yoga. I have a little bit of nervous energy.

However, rather than looking at this as a calamity, I�m trying to see it as an opportunity for training. If life never offers me challenges, then I�ll never have a need to become better centered.

If I�m ever to become the person I want to be, which is someone who can offer healing without immediately requiring spiritual resuscitation herself, then I must go through this.

For most people, a mysterious, two week illness is not a calamity. It�s an inconvenience, but it usually doesn�t destroy your life. Usually. I should at least be among the normal a little bit, right?

But, why is it so damned hard?

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