Driving in the car this morning I realized how badly my back hurt. Back pain is something new to me – it wasn’t pleasant. But realizing why it was there in the first place was even less pleasant.
I love to fall asleep – I just love the whole process of coming to peace at the end of the day and realizing that tomorrow will come anew. The words of The Book of Common Prayer – so often uttered at Evensong in my childhood – wisp me away:
O LORD, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen. (BCP)
So falling asleep is a peaceful thing. I hear these words and roll on my left side. I sleep on the right side of the bed – that’s my side – so I turn to my left so I can see.
The problem is I can’t turn on my left side at the moment because I don’t want to see. Because there is nothing to see – there is only emptiness. So I slide as far to the right as I possibly can and turn on my right. And it’s uncomfortable. And rather than hearing soft words of prayer and drifting slowly away, I grit my teeth and tense my back.
It’s no surprise then that driving this morning – a trip that is always shorter than I think it is – my back started aching. I tried driving faster, but I couldn’t help but notice that the ETA on the GPS never changed. How could that be? I even got stuck behind a truck near construction, and again the ETA never changed. I was trapped in that car for as long as it was going to take me. For a moment I felt I had lost any control on my life – on my sleeping, my psyche, my body, even where I physically was.
The only thing to do was keep driving. Eventually I would arrive at my destination. Eventually.
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