Tag: covid

Glorious Purpose

I feel stuck. Immobile. Mired. I do not much care for this state of being.

Lately I have been watching the series Loki on Disney+. It is a great continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the story of that universe’s version of the Norse God of Mischief. The title character is discovering all sorts of things about himself, and growing in so many dimensions as a person.

Loki’s catchphrase, introduced in the first Avenger’s’ film, “I am burdened with glorious purpose” comes to haunt him in a very unique way throughout the show.

That same idea, that “glorious purpose,” has come to haunt me lately. I don’t know if it is because of my once and future depression, or a symptom my covid infection that refuses to go away (I have come to suspect that I still suffer some mental effects from my bout with that virus back in January of this year). I don’t know if it is just garden variety laziness, or some other yet undiscovered malady. All I know is that I, like Loki, am burdened with glorious purpose….but I am unable to do anything about it.

The God of Mischief doesn’t have my particular problem. His affliction is that he seems doomed to fail. The audience of his show have yet to see if that will out once more in the ultimate episode, or if Loki will yet succeed, for once, in his journey. I, too, am in the middle, or maybe even at the end of the beginning, of my journey. I suppose it depends on how much of this life I am fated to live. Anyhow, I, like Loki, haven’t yet lived my last days.

Which brings me back to glorious purpose: what am I to do? Or, better yet, how am I to find the motivation to do it? I don’t know. Loki found a better part of himself in his journey that is dragging him up from his depths. Maybe I need such an impetus to drag me up. Perhaps. I somehow don’t think my problem is external. There could be some new drug, or treatment, or therapy, or thing that could pull me onwards, but I doubt it. I think my trouble in internal. I think inside of myself is both problem and solution.

In digging deep, I think I can discover my cure for, and ignition towards, my glorious purpose. Loki discovers that his glorious purpose is a diversion, a limiting factor. He saw he was doing it wrong all along. By trying to live up to some high ideal, whether crafted by himself or thrust upon him by station, he was already failing. But by following his own path he found his true glorious purpose: simply being himself.

That realization could be my salvation. I may need explore within and reconnect with who I, Phil RedBeard, am, and was, and will be, and embrace that fully. I am already doing some of that here. I am writing, and that has always seemed to be my first, best destiny. Suddenly I am not sitting around scrolling social media without purpose.

I am moving forward. I am achieving. And it is a heady feeling; I like this feeling. It’s almost as if I have met my true glorious purpose at last. Loki would be proud.

Glimpse of Mortality

I’ve been close to death before, but it was quick. A move of desperation, grim faced and full of rage, daring the Reaper to take me. Then I rushed to my senses and swerved to safety.

But this past winter, I was made to stare into my own mortality and really contemplate the end. I was made to live with the knowledge that each labored breath could be my last, that if things went sideways or southwards, I’d be headed for my end.

I was one of millions who contacted the Covid-19 virus and it sent me to the hospital. I had survived a year of mask wearing and lockdowns and restrictions, but at the turn of the calendar, I got sick. One dark night, I tried to go to sleep. I have sleep apnea, and wear a cpap mask to keep my airways open. But even with that, I couldn’t fall asleep. Even with that positive air pressure being forced into my lungs, I couldn’t grab a breath. Into the night, sitting up in a recliner, I labored to breathe.

Eventually I texted my wife, unable to get enough breath to shout up to the bedroom on the second floor. Eventually I woke her up, and told her I needed to go to the Emergency Room. All the way to the hospital, I felt fear take hold. Unlike my previous suicide attempts, when I desperately wanted to die, this time I desperately wanted to live.

All year, I had seen the death toll rise world wide. I had read and heard stories of healthy people succumbing to this virus that sometimes seemed innocuous, and sometimes seemed vicious. I began to be terrified that I would never leave the hospital alive.

We arrived, and I sat alone in the waiting room, struggling to breathe. My wife wasn’t allowed to sit with me, to reduce the risk of infection to those healthy of the virus. Fear settled in to stay. Eventually I was taken back for a few questions and tests. I was given oxygen and a wheel chair. I could breathe easier, but inside I was still gasping, grasping for a hold on the moment.

After forever, I was taken to a room on the ER floor. An oxygen feed kept me breathing. After a bad night during which I didn’t sleep a wink and was reduced to deep indignity (no nurse was available to unhook my IV and in desperate need of relief, I shit my pants and pissed all over the room floor and still waited 15 minutes for help and a janitor to clean up my mess). But that was nothing: I was being admitted with a severe case of covid.

What followed was a week in which I was sequestered by myself in a hospital room on the fifth floor. A friend visited, but we talked on the phone and saw each other from 30 feet away through a window in the wall. He wasn’t allowed closer, being a nurse himself caring for covid patients. I couldn’t see my wife, and could only call her. I still can’t imagine what that week was like for her, alone and herself afflicted with a milder case of the virus.

I spent my long hours staring out of the window, watching the weather and thinking. For the first time in my life, I really contemplated the fact that I could die. The doctors, not seeing improvement, started me on steroids and a powerful drug (I don’t remember what it was called) to try to fight the infection. I was so scared, though I put on a brave voice for my family when they called. I kept thinking that healthier people than me had lost their battles with covid.

Eventually, after a few days, I did start to get better. In the end, I spent a full week in the hospital. I was discharged on oxygen and with a bucketful of meds, healthy enough to finish my recovery at home. I was finally reunited with my wife. It felt so good, though I was weak and still finding it hard to breathe.

It has taken me much longer to recover psychologically. Thanks to my doctors and the medication, my body got stronger and I could surrender the oxygen and I could walk up the stairs without getting winded. But the fear has only recently loosed its grip on my heart and mind. With my covid vaccine, I now am starting to feel that I might live a while yet.

No longer will I take life for granted. Never again will I tempt the Reaper. I know now that my life is precious. It could flee from me at any moment, after all, I could get into a car accident tomorrow, or something else could happen. The permanence of life remains an illusion.

But I deeply appreciate my life now in a way I didn’t before. I am gentler with myself, more accepting of my flaws and foibles. They aren’t as important or devastating anymore. I have been given a perspective I lacked before. I was flat where now I feel dimension. And all it took was a real look into the specter of nothingness. I wouldn’t wish covid on anyone. I wish I never had that experience, but I cannot deny the change it made to my life. It has taken me months to publicly talk about it in this way. But I find it important to acknowledge what happened.

I feel my life has begun in a new way since January. I feel I am living a renewed existence. And it feels good. Life still hurts and is confusing and messy and frustrating, but at least for now, I am breathing. And that’s not nothing.

One of those days when I was just lying in my hospital bed, I wrote a little poem. It isn’t anything profound, but I find it beautiful, and it is these little moments of beauty that I live for now. Life isn’t guaranteed, never was really, so I am about catching the little moments of beauty while they last.

The city,
wreathed in steam,
dominates only a small portion
of my windowed horizon.
An industrial plateau stretches ‘round.
What I took for a flock of birds,
frozen in the sky:
dirt on the windowpane.
Low winter clouds buttress the sky above,
grey and bleak and lit from far away.

- view from A5110