First – I didn’t even check the date yesterday and totally missed my brothers birthday! My wonderful big brother whom I love and admire and I can’t even remember his birthday? – bad sister! Bad! Oh, I have alerts set everywhere for these things – but it’s like living next to a railroad track – after a while you don’t even hear the trains go by – I don’t even notice the alerts. And I often don’t pay attention to little things like dates and the time…and the phone…and…that’s beside the point.
I had such high hopes for this month, but so far a lot has not been going so well – and I mean a lot. Let me unload about my most recent fiasco.
In addition to fighting migraines daily for the past week or two, I’ve tweaked my back and wrenched my knee. I am a mess, a big hurting mess. So last night I asked Rick if he had any icy-hot to rub on my knee. No, but he found this:
OK – that’ll work. So I started rubbing it on my knee. It felt good to massage my knee but I couldn’t feel anything happening – it’s probably old and lost it “power” – so I rubbed more on. Still nothing, so I rubbed even more on. Now I just want to go to bed- I’ll get some new stuff at the store tomorrow. I washed my hands real good like the instructions said, crawled in bed and dozed off. But woke right up with my knee and leg really hot. Oh good, I think – this stuff does still work a bit, it’ll probably feel better in the morning. Good. Back to sleep – only to awake with the bed on FIRE!! Oh My Gosh!!! – not just my knee and leg- but my face, my eyes, and a number of spots on my arms and neck. Everywhere I touched my skin - it lit up like an inferno. This was a surprise! And a VERY painful one – Like a hot iron on my skin - I’ll take the sore wrenched knee over this burning fire any day! Where the heck is Smokey the Bear when you need him? Am I turning into Pyro?? I washed my hands! What the heck? So I washed my hands again, took some Advil (which did seem to dull the pain a little) did my best to ignore it and repeated it all night long – doze a little, awake burning, doze a little, burn, repeat. By morning it was a bit better – but I had still rubbed my eyes and they weren’t happy with me, as well as touched my face and neck a lot, yikes.
Great, crappy night, but at least it was over. I jumped in the shower and Oh My Gosh! FIRE!! Apparently mixing water and Capsaicin is like throwing water on a grease fire. The whole thing started all over again!
Doing my best to ignore this crazy burning pain, I began getting ready to head to the studio. I needed a little tool I use on occasion – it’s only about 1-2 inches big, and I don’t use it often – but I wanted it today to help me check the colors in my painting. It’s a helpful little thing, but it is small and easily misplaced and overlooked. I can’t find it. Since I have moved stuff around and moved my studios – I can’t find a lot of things. So, tears are running down my face from my eyes burning – various parts of my body are on fire – my head is starting to get the best of me, my knee and back still hurt, I am frustrated as all get out when I run across this:
Yep. Three empty Coke cans that I brought back from Cairo a year or so ago. Who lugs garbage home from Egypt? I just started laughing, remembering Rick’s dismay at my packing them to bring home. I thought the Arabic on them was interesting and I know a woman who does recycled art. She might like them. Souvenirs for the kids or family? not so much – But I just gotta bring that trash home for an artist acquaintance. I had forgotten all about these.
My laughter took my mind off all of my pain and discomfort for a minute. In my laughter – and a moment of clarity - it began to dawn on me – Oh yeah, among all of the oddities and “-isms” I have – I totally forgot about my having “hypersensitivity syndrome.” It kind of comes and goes, and is usually worse when I am under stress. Like when I am facing deadlines and things aren’t going smoothly and I feel like I am running out of money and time – you know, stuff like that. That is when my skin gets super sensitive and I have to wear my socks and underwear inside out because the seams irritate my skin so bad, and I can’t sleep if the sheets have wrinkles because the wrinkles hurt my skin…Oh yeah. That.
So what have I learned- if anything?
I learned a little about poetic justice. That fire and my brother kind of go together – my shirt caught on fire as a young girl and he put me out. So is there some poetic justice in the fact that I forgot his birthday and then “burned” all night? I kind of think so….
I learned that a little tiny bit of Capsaicin cream might be wiser than half a tube – or maybe none at all would be good, especially when I tend to have very sensitive skin. And I ought to think first – before I slather fire inducing ointment on my hypersensitive skin.
I learned that I rub my eyes in my sleep and touch my face and neck a lot too.
I learned that I forget a lot of important stuff – so did I ever really learn it? Really?
And now back to hunting for my little tool…and taking the Cairo coke cans to see if I can even find the person I brought them back for (whom I don’t even know well – only met a time or two), then to the studio to see if I can paint through these burning, blurry, teary eyes.
And yes – it is OK to laugh at me – I am still laughing myself -
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