Life's like an hourglass glued to the table

[Daniel]

I love this song which I've just discovered, 'Breathe', by Anna Nalick - mostly because, not only is it just a really nice song, but one line of the lyrics :

'Life's like an hourglass glued to the table'

When I hear this line, it obviously implies that the hourglass can't be reset and, therefore, (in my interpretation) it's incredibly finite in it's duration and fixed in such a way that when it's gone, it's gone.
It's an over dramatic observation on my part to point this out, and I'm sure anyone who hears the song probably wont miss this, I think, excellent line in the song but one thing I feel I'm learning through the course of this recovery is the precious commodity which is time. I sit here now and reflect upon a time early in recovery when I'd curse myself daily about not being able to recall a damn thing from the day before and now it all seems so clear in my mind that I wonder how much of it has been manufactured or confabulated by my formerly ailing memory that all I can draw are conclusions about how so very stagnant time used to feel when I sat on my hospital bed and wished I was anywhere else, yet now that I'm vastly improved from that point, I can see just how much time has been lost devoting every single waking second of my day fueling common conceptions from those around me that I've been incredibly selfish and self centred in the way I've undertaken recovery : always about my health and doing what I need to do in order to improve.
I thought on this initially with regret and a desire to take back all I had done to earn this negative perspective. I reflected on it daily and the contempt I held for my selfishness seemed, at times, only able to be numbed by the monotony of rehabilitation, keeping busy and, in doing so, perpetuating this very label of being selfish which had been appointed to me.

I thought on that, got up the next day and thrashed out a 90 minute gym rehab routine, completed 2 hours of written study recital, did home rehab, wrote, emailed, and generally justified the label of 'selfish' I'd received.

Then I asked myself why I chose to do all that and not ever stop - as I've never done (ie stop) for 4 years now, and I think I can now answer this :

In 2005, when I was in hospital and each day felt like it might have been the one where things worsened, I suffered the brain haemorrhage doctors warned me about, or generally gave up on life itself, I promised myself that I'd just give trying one good go and see whether or not something unexpected could come of it.
I thought that while I sat in the hospital ward I was in and, a few months later, I began to go to the gym and retrain my body, I began learning new words of Chinese and not just the old stuff I'd maintained until that point but never progressed.

It felt like my own hourglass had come unglued and turned over again to begin time like new as days began to zoom past and became weeks, months and now years : 4 of them. That's less than many who suffer this or other conditions, but it's felt like an eternity to me. I feel almost like I've aged about 10 years, not 4, since 2005 (it's now 2009, obviously), but I just now feel older or more mature than I used to be - not wise or learned or anything, just numb to my previous terror at losing so much time, not waking up tomorrow, wondering where I'll be in a year or so. I want to get up tomorrow so that I can feel better than how I do right now - whether it's real improvment, or I'm simply lying to myself, the worst case scenario would be going back to seeing time as being like an hourglass glued to the table.

In my experience, ungluing time involves being determined to make something different and concentrating upon that.

When I think back over the past four years, I see such a wide spectrum of different mindsets beginning at calamitous and slowly winding its way to the hopeful state it seems in right now, yet, as I look back and feel I've aged about 10 years over a 4 year period and note how fast it's all appeared to have gone by while each moment has felt painfully slow to pass by, I find living in the now to be an incredibly hard thing to achieve : the past terrifies me and I try daily to protect my future by rectifying all that used to be so scary to ponder yet remaining constantly fixated on yesterday or tomorrow has meant that right now, the present, has felt, at times, so much like an hourglass glued to the table as I want tomorrow so intensely because it'll feel better than now, yet hate having lost so much recent history at the same time.

I dunno, it's a psychological thing - like much of encephalitis seems to be, getting my head around the passing of time or the fear of tomorrow makes living today sometimes an incredibly difficult thing to achieve, only done so by being self centred and fixated on what to do for myself right now.

I don't feel selfish, I feel justified. People always say before calling me selfish, "I couldn't possibly understand what you've been through" : here it is in a nutshell - to me, being in recovery over a course of years is about being selfish and filling in time as productively as possible in order to be a better or improved person and, by virtue of that, regaining the ability to once again be less self centred to others.

I think it's more selfish not to be self obsessive with this recovery and desire improving in order to repay those who stay and remain as companions - self obsession in recovery, I think, is more than understandable, it's necessary.