The Light & The Effing Tunnel

Ok, people say it all the time. They see a light at the end of the tunnel. And I know first hand that even a pinhole of light can change the perception of pain and the psychological will to tolerate more. And, no, I am in no way saying that the pain is just in your head. But our pain communicates directly to our brain, so our headspace matters. So often when we hear about that light at the end of the tunnel, we don't want to be in the tunnel to with. I am here to convince you otherwise. But you gotta bear with me and allow me to share with you my perspective on that effing tunnel.

Some examples: - the woman who pushes for hours knows that her pain will end soon and this pain is even sweeter, because it comes with ome of life's greatest blessings ever. Ya, I know, this example is hardly fair, but it gives you the basis of my neologistic take. - next, a baseball player that gets a fastball to the shin. Excruciating, yes. But they know this pain will be gone in a few minutes and a lingering, milder (but still very painful) pain will last for a week. They also know they get to take first base and now are helping their team. - a dad who carries his sleeping daughter through the park. Numb hands, strained shoulders, and most likely a tweaked back from the crooked position he's been balancing her weight with all day. He knows he may be sore for a few days or more, but he knows it will stop shortly thereafter, and daddy's little girl got her rest. Ok, so each of these have a hero dynamic. Their light at the end of the tunnel was huge! In fact, I am pretty sure they could see the trees or singing birds or whatever it is outside of the tunnel coming into view already. Which is why people will time and time put themselves into these positions. They have the heroism perspective. It's the speedster way out of the tunnel. Their pain is only a means to an end and the end for them is much greater than any pain. Some more examples - just, keep reading: - a kid falls off a horse and breaks his arm. Sure, he was doing something he thought was fun, but the pain is bad and there is a road to recovery that takes time away from other fun activities, like a punishment. After a few days, he is back to laughing and probably pushing his luck running around with a cast on his arm. He realizes this pain will stop, the cast will come off, and he will be able to go back to his regular activities again. I can't guarantee that kid gets back up on the horse again (see what I did there?!) but aside from being afraid of getting on an animal or maybe even jarring a fear of heights, he will be ok. - a high school athletes tears his ACL. If you've ever been an athlete, you know when your knee goes pop, the ACL is a dreaded acronym that means you're out for the season. Besides the horrific pain, impending surgery, and months of physical therapy to try to become the same athlete at 100%, you might have just lost the state title or a college scholarship. What do you do now? These tunnels are darker, and longer, and lonelier. These tunnels could take years to get out of. But with a support system of family and friends, hard work, the right doctors, and at least one serious life lesson, the ends of these tunnels will come. I'm pretty sure that this is the type of tunnel most people are referring to when they use the phrase. In all of these examples, even the darkest tunnel has a light. That light is what gives us hope. It is something to work for and a reason to keep moving through it. We may not always be the same person when we emerge out of the tunnel, but isn't that what life is about? To find reasons to live for? The light give us a reason to push through physical therapy when it is the last thing you want to do. The light gives us the power to get up on that effing horse again (I had to). The light gives women a reason to endure being pregnant again. The reason our heart beats and our soul develops. But there's another side to this. There has to be. There is no yin without yang. Happiness can literally not exist without sorrow. Some people come out of that tunnel really effing messed up. Maybe their reasons to push their way through were deliberately malicious. Maybe they didn't get out of the tunnel at all. They sit there in the darkness on that curved floor, alone, staring at that light like a star disappearing into the night's sky. These are the people who need others to help them. Who need people to find the hope for them. Be their cheerleader and support system. Incite false confidence, with the hope it manifests into real confidence. If you can be that to someone, I can promise you that you will know a joy so great and so powerful. But what the eff am I supposed to do when there is no light? Am I even in an effing tunnel? Or is it just a square box with no windows, no doors, and no light that everyone around me keeps telling me is a tunnel? Don't think it's real? I've been there. After months of watching my family stretch themselves so far to do everything for me and for each other, while I lay in bed, catatonic. I couldn't even get from my bed to the bathroom 10 feet away without my own body creating excuciating, agonizing pain that lasted for hours. I realized I would go days without food and the most minimal of water to not need to get up at all. What was my lowest of lows? My darkest of hours? What etched its name as the day I felt like a lump of skin, bones, tissue, fat, and hyperactive nerves with no purpose? When I was strapped into a wheelchair, wheeled into a van, and clipped into that van with seat belts that reminded me of bungee cords all around me. I bounced and flopped around in that chair the full twenty-three minutes it took to get there. Then, the sweet man who appeared to be in his sixties, strained himself as he pushed me all the way to my psych appointment. I don't think I heard much that session. I don't think I even noticed time passed until that sweet old man was sweating as he tried to get me out of the elevator while I was in that effing wheelchair. Then I bounced and flopped until I found myself back in bed. I didn't see a light. There wasn't even a flicker. I didn't think I lived in a world in which tunnels even existed. I trudged along like a zombie through life for a few more weeks after that. Then, my doctor said I could start some new meds, and get some injections. He talked about the science of why it could work now and some other medical mumbo jumbo. All I heard was hope. Even if this hope was the size of a single grain of sand in all the deserts of the world, I had that effing grain of sand and was never letting go. With the ever slightest improvement, I found my mother effing tunnel. I marched through that tunneling, attacking from all angles: psychologically, emotionally, medicinally, holistically, and spritually. I wish so much that I could tell you what to do when there isn't a tunnel. When your pain, emotionally or physically gets worse, every day. Something has to change for you to get into a tunnel. You don't have tobe the one to make the light for it, that will come. And, believe me, I am still in a realllllllllly long tunnel, which sometimes feel like it is out there in the night. But, ecen then, there are stars in the night. So find your effing tunnel, because if you can find a way to get into a tunnel, then you will find a light. I don't care if you feel uncomfortable in your tunnel. I don't care how long or short your tunnel may be. The good thing about these tunnels, is that if you find your way into one, there is definitely a way out. If you find the tunnel, the light is there.

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