Stacy over at chaplainjesuslady knocked it out of the park today. "Do you want to be made well?"--that is a question I've been asking myself lately as I have been moping and stalling and pushing off graduation, pushing away opportunities for friendship and (real) recreation. I've resisted things I enjoy, like going to see plays, reading gorgeous novels, taking walks, or visiting the Art Institute, and have been filling my time with low-quality television, endless blog scrolling, sleeping to the point of headaches. Because I have been avoiding my dissertation, it is becoming very likely that I may have to pay extra fees. I've been disgusted with myself, and primarily because I saw myself doing and not doing all these things and I still preferred being lazy, unmotivated, understimulated, and anxiety-laden.
"Do you want to be made well?" No. No I did not. And that answer is and was distasteful to me, so I brushed it aside. I didn't want to be made well, and I also didn't want to have to think about what that could mean long term.
Stacy the chaplain reframes the choice in that question as one between the known and the unknown. Sickness of any kind, whether physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual, can become the safe though unfortunate known. Leaving sickness for the unknown path to wellness--sounds like an obvious choice in the abstract, of course. But letting go of those little pockets of "that's not so bad" that count as pleasures and comforts for the future possibility of fabled "real" pleasures you can't even begin to imagine is genuinely difficult.
I can't say I want to be made well. It doesn't feel that way. Remembering that I am resisting the unknown for no other reason than that it is unknown to me makes it easier to take little steps that carry me away from the comfort I cling to only because I know it.
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