Destabilized

Recently I started having severe back pain. I say severe because for months my pain was manageable, “common in students” as the doctor said. But after a second opinion and a few x-rays, it turns out I have mild scoliosis; an ever so slight bend in my spine that exclaims its presence.

Something about this whole experience has been viscerally grounding, not in the way that touching grass grounds you, but in the way that a bag of bricks pulls you to the ground.

The prosecutor in my head asks the same questions over and over, trying to catch the culprit. Why didn’t you do something about this sooner? Why did you push yourself so hard? Why didn’t you listen to your body? I go back and forth feeling like I’ve failed my body and feeling like my body failed me, never quite sure which came first, like a chicken and egg situation, but sure that both are equally true.

Overnight everything changed. Routines re-wired. Habits halted. And the main determining factor of how any given day goes has become my back; like I’ve surrendered control to my spine. As someone who enjoys the independence, autonomy, and paced nature of my day to day routine, surrendering control to something outside of me was completely destabilizing.

Isn’t it ironic? That I refer to something that is deeply embedded within me as something outside of me? Maybe that’s the fundamental problem. That I perceive my body to be outside of me. A vehicle not a home. Perhaps if I had treated it like one I wouldn’t be here. And the prosecutor starts again.

What I find even more ironic is the root of my pain. The spine. A bodily structure meant to hold you up, support you. Destabilized by the main stabilizing organ. Can you think of anything more ironic than that?

But I quiet these thoughts,
I shush the prosecutor,
And I repeat to myself:

(رَبِّ إِنِّي مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُّ وَأَنْتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ)
(رَبِّ إِنِّي مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُّ وَأَنْتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ)
(رَبِّ إِنِّي مَسَّنِيَ الضُّرُّ وَأَنْتَ أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ)

And I wait
For the destabilized
To stabilize.