It’s my third re-birthday, which means it’s been three years since my medical crisis. That is wild for me because for the first year or two, I was just living day by day. I didn’t really have a plan for the future. I did last year, but I didn’t really get onto it as a slow trickle of bad things happened to me, ranging from irritating to tragic/traumatic. The traumatic thing happened in late February of this year, and it wiped me out. I was barely functional for months, and it’s only been in the last month or so that I’ve started to come back.
I want to explore what I will do in this year. I feel like it’s my year to shine. I wrote a bit about my goals in my last post, but of course wandered all over the place. I also included the same video in the last post, but it’s my meditation for the year, so I’m including it again. It’s MILCK’s musitation, Metamorphosis. Here are the lyrics that really hit home for me:
Give it a little more time, a little more timeMeant for greater heightsA little more time, a little more timeWet wings, they will dryOoh, I was born for this
I’ve been in a cocoon, and it’s time for me to emerge. I also like that she mentions death in the song. And it’s just a gorgeous song in general. So it’s my meditation and my muse for the upcoming year.
I mentioned yesterday that I want to get back to writing. I still write a post a day, but I also want to write my memoir and/or a murder mystery. Or a novel that is loosely based on my time in the hospital. Why? Because I was high as a kite the whole time, but did not realize it. I had so many delusions that I just took for granted were real. I’ve asked my brother about a few things, and he’s confirmed the ones he remembered.
I told him stories about things that I thought happened. One example is that I thought there was a young woman (around 22 years old) on my floor who had died from Covid. I overheard the nurses talking about her. It was clear they knew her as more than a recent patient. Her family had a ranch and a popular website about that ranch. They ware also conservatives who did not believe in vaccinations. (And by extension, taking appropriate measures to not get Covid.) It turned out that the mother had Covid as well, and died, too.
About six months ago, my brother and I were talking about my hospital stay. He asked if that young woman had actually died. I said no. I did look it up when I got home and could not find anything about it. There was no way that would not have been in the news if it had happened. None. This ‘memory’ was supplemented with visuals of the nurses talking about it. That’s another indicator that it was not real. There is no way they would talk about it in front of me.
Several months after I came home, I looked up delusions (once I realized that almost everything I remembered in the hospital was a delusion) in the hospital and found out it was an actual thing. Unfortunately, it’s usually much more traumatic than what I went through. Delusions about being sexually assaulted or assaulted in general, for example. Mine were wild, yes, but none of them were traumatic. Well, one was mildly disturbing, but nothing that harmed me in the long run.
Back to my goals.
I have personal goals. I have health goals. And I have house goals. Let’s talk about the personal goals since that’s what I started yesterday. Well, this is both a personal and a health goal. I’m making it a personal goal beacuse I can.
2. Teach myself the left side of the Fan Form and the Double Saber Form. I have not taught myself a new weapons form in quite some time. I think I taught myself the Fan Form after my medical crisis, but nothing else since. I am learning the Swimming Dragon Form in Bagua from my teacher in my private lessons every other week, but I feel a bit stagnated in my Taiji weaponry. I can do the sword (right and left), saber (right and left), cane (right and left), fan (right), double saber (right), and dancing sword (right). I know most of a karambit form, but that’s not Taiji.
I went pretty hard core on learning weapon forms. Then, my teacher told me to slow it down. Not because she was against me teaching myself (weapons are not her thing), but because she did not want me to do it in a careless way. She had a point. I was doing it in part because I just wanted to add forms to my repertoire. I mean, I love the weapons forms, but I was doing it in part just to do it. I wanted to be able to say I know this many weapons forms. I don’t think that is inherently wrong, but it shouldn’t be the main reason for learning new weapons.
I will say that I love most of the weapons I’ve learned. I’ve had a hard time with the saber–oh, I hated it when I first learned it. It’s been quite the journey, I must say. I hated it when I first picked it up. It felt wrong in my hand, and I felt all kinds of clumsy moving it around.
The backstory: it was the second weapon I learned. I LOVED the sword (still do), which was my first weapon. I knew that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I erroneously thought that the saber would be like the sword. Instead, it was a completely different weapon–and it felt just not right in my hand. And I resented it heavily for years. I had to take a break from it for several reasons, and it was nearly two years before I got back to it. When I did, it was completely different. I knew more about the reasons behind Taiji, and I could apply that knowledge to the saber.
I hasten to say that I did not love the saber. Not even with my new knowledge. I was neutral at best on it the second time around. Then, slowly, I started warming up to it. Once I had it in my head that it was a completely different weapon than the sword, I was able to let go of the preconceived notions. Then, the real fun begann.