There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today

I suppose we all know that with joy comes sorrow and that with our increased capacity to know joy we increase our capacity to experience sorrow. The point is to be open enough to allow both, because it matters, because that's what being alive means. We risk happiness knowing that sorrow or frustration is waiting somewhere down the line. It makes our happiness sweeter. And when we are tearing up and feeling the pain we know that nothing lasts forever and someday this, too, will also pass. And that is solace. The yo-yo of it, though, is where I get tweaked.

I took a weekend out of town recently because it had been years since I'd traveled out of town for no particular reason at all except to be somewhere else, to see the sights, and visit with people, eat food. You know, a weekend vacation. (Life as a musician doesn't always include straight-up vacation. Usually you head out and try to squeeze in a gig since you're on the road anyway. I did squeeze in a studio visit but it was fun, yo, and I wasn't aiming to earn money by doing it so I'm not counting it as work.)

The weekend was perfect; I haven't been that happy in a long long time and I needed it. And then the bus ride home I sat under a frigid AC vent and 3 days later I was sick as a dog. Still am. It's been 15 days now of misery.

I haven't been sick with an infection like this for a few years and it brings up all my stuff....all the stuff that I've been blogging about here since I started. Does this mean my immune system is compromised again? Am I toxic again? Is this the beginning of another three-year saga of sorrow? This is how it all began last time.....

Obviously, we have to detach from our story somewhat. Legacy is not our fate but psychological wounds are real and clearly I'm not past feeling mine when it comes to illness. Now I know.

And so I say amidst the head congestion and coughing and sinus pain that this doesn't last. I had those 3 days of blissful happiness. No concussion symptoms, no fatigue, no feelings that I didn't belong. Everything was right with the world for once and it will be that way again.

More broadly, we put our hearts out there. Well, at least I try. And I know all of the ways that allows us to grow our souls and shed our egos. I get that. I love being alive for that and I know I'm lucky to walk my path. But separation and sorrow. The yo-yo. Living in the paradox of both existing at the same time, how do we contain that? How do our bodies even hold that without exploding?