A Personal Dichotomy

One of the enduring messages of Taoism is flexibility. This can be seen in the references to the bamboo plant. Bamboo can withstand tremendous winds by bending, yet not breaking. Another point of illustration is water. Water itself is formless and flows in the areas of least resistance. Place an insurmountable obstacle in the river channel and the water will simply flow around it cutting a new course.

Both of these metaphors -- particularly the water -- appeal to my spiritual self. There have been many times, when faced with a challenge or a dilemma, that I've asked myself, "How would a river handle this?"

Yet, while my spiritual and intellectual selves embraces this principle, my physiological self is anything BUT flexible. Both my physical and emotional selves tend to be rigid.

From a physical standpoint, the key hallmark to my life is the pain from fibromyalgia and degenerative arthritis. When a part of the body hurts, I don't want to move it much. So, I tend to hold it rigidly in position to avoid unnecessary pain.

I'm also a quintessential klutz! Clumsiness happens to be common symptoms of those with KS and AS. During my youth, my parents took me to the local emergency room an average of twice per year from the ages 2 - 18 and I had many more major accidents that simply necessitated a visit to the family doctor.

Here's a brief list of my youthful "accidents":

• Struck in the head twice by moving golf clubs;
• Had a hockey stick broken over my head;
• Knocked unconscious by baseballs;
• Kicked in the face (with cleats) during soccer match;
  
• Left foot sliced from big toe to heal by jagged glass;
• Several stitches to left index finger caught in moving bicycle chain;
• Bites and scrapes when attacked by a German Shepherd;
• Stung multiple times in groin by a swarm of yellow jackets;
• Swallowed entire bottle of Children's Aspirin (age 2) -- had stomach pumped;
• Broken left arm from falling off of bicycle;
• Gravel dug out of knee from falling off of bicycle (different incident);
• General injuries from falling out of a tree;
• And, my personal favorite, getting a hypodermic needle stuck 2" deep in my right heel -- was yanked out with pliers by ex-Marine neighbor.

Due to all these accidents and more, I try to be as sure-footed as possible (it doesn't help though!) and I don't like trying to move with the situation because it almost always means I will end up injuring myself!

As I've chronicled here over the past month, my AS causes my personality to detest change in all its various forms. I plod through life following my rituals and I tend to come unglued if any of these rituals are interrupted or altered.

So, I seem to have a bit of a split in my make-up and I'm having a devil of a time trying to bring these different pieces together to form a whole.