How Hope Wins: Life is Like Hopscotch

So unsurprisingly, these last few days I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of hope.

It’s interesting, hope works a lot like my pain management does.  To explain, I’ll clarify a little about my meds: Right now I’m on a narcotic that I can take every 4 hours.  One way to do this, would be to wait until I am in pain, and then to take the pill.  But then so much of the drug is then committed towards getting me out of the bad pain and back towards neutral…..this is sounding unnecessarily complex.

Hmm…Pretend it’s hopscotch.  Where I’m trying to hop towards being pain-free, and I have the pain monster behind me.  So the drug can help me move 4 hops forward, but the pain has already made me move backwards three.  So when I take the medicine, I really am only moving forward one square towards being pain-free!  Thus, the other way to try to manage pain is to take the medicine every 4 hours, not waiting for the pain to join the hopscotch game.  That way I can move forward 4 hops every time I take it, and be closer to feeling better.

(Now, this is a hopscotch game to play with doctors, of course, because narcotics are a little more complex and potentially addictive than childhood games, but as long as that is known, the metaphor holds.)  (….we can pretend it’s a game of hopscotch over a lava pit and my doctors are my hopping-coaches.)

So.  I have realized that hope works like this too.  It’s a hopscotch game headed towards happiness, with the dark feelings behind me.  If I try to think of something positive, I will move forward three squares towards happiness.  But if I wait for the sadness to take over and pull me back 6 hops….then I’m barely moving forward.  I’m still hopping three steps towards happiness, but I’ve been pulled so far back that it may not even feel like progress.

Thus I have learned that happiness is something that must be managed like pain: with a daily effort towards moving forward; otherwise it’ll feel like the darkness has taken over in my game of hopscotch.  And it’s important to feel like I’m always moving forward; that I have that control over my own happiness.

In my last post, circumstances had allowed the sadness to pull me so far back that I felt like I was losing my hopscotch game towards happiness.  Generally, I would hide in moments like this, not publish them….but I am committed towards the honesty of where I am in my healing process.  So I wrote about it.

But.  Just because I was losing the game then, doesn’t mean I’m not doing everything I can now to hop towards happiness.

It’s just going to take a little more daily effort, I think…..which to me sounds like a lovely project.   And I have a few ideas a-brewin’ :)

In the meantime…why is all of this relevant?  I have another nerve block scheduled for today.

This is the treatment that was the *first thing* to help me in months, which then failed after three days.  So as you can imagine, it was a ton of excited hops forward, only to be pulled even farther back by the fear that the pain monster is always going to win.

And yet I am nevertheless trying again today.  It’s a gamble and I’m wagering my physical and emotional states….but again, I need to feel like I am in control over my own hope and happiness.

So even if the treatment fails again, three days of relief where I feel released from the clutches of pain and disease…..perhaps this is such a victory that the elation of it can bring me residual hope, even when the treatment begins to fade.

Because even though I’ve spoken of two hopscotch games, the physical one of hopping from pain towards healing, and the emotional one of moving from sadness to happiness…they’re really both the same game, with  the bad behind me and the good in front of me.

And I’m still learning all the rules…..but I am thinking that I can choose the number of hops I take.  I think I can limit how far back pain pulls me, and I think I can allow my own victories to boost me even further forward.

So in addition to the nerve block, today I’m also trying a bad-block.  And I need hope to win.

This is my new goal.

Wish me luck today ;)

(above are four moments where hope won during hopscotch.  The first time I got to wear my clothes after 10 days in hospital gowns; a puppy that decided she loves me; a security guard that made me feel confident in a wheelchair; and a sparkly reminder that everything is going to be great.)