I've been to many places ... too bad none of them is real

The last few weeks have been rather challenging. In early may, a terrible and unceasing wave of chest pain came over me. I underwent several MRI's and other imaging, all of which revieled nothing!

In trying to manage the situation, I was put on pain killers (a strong dose of it). I've never been on pain killers this much before (sure I've taken the odd one or two when needed and prescribed, but never this many pills at a time). I had to resort to taking as much as four tablets at once, and that put me in a whole different world! This world was pleasant; but it was not real. Besides the fact that my pain was hidden away (pain killers never really kill the pain, they just mask it), I felt as though my mind was wandering in many places -- those of calm and anger, those of peace and anxiety and those of happiness and sadness. in addition to being masked from my pain, I was also masked from reality. My feelings were vivid, my imagination was ritch and my emotions were all over the place, but my whole reality was ... not real as it were! That's what drugs do to you!

It is nearly the end of June, and my chest seems to be calming down and my pain is on its way out. The world I leave behind, the world of pain killers is somewhat different from the world I entered into. There were many things I was looking forward to this summer, including a promising relationship, but as the world of pain killers is behind me, so is this relationship -- quite honestly, I'm not sure why! Pain is a tough beast to battle. For those of you who have never had to fight it, I hope you never do; and for those of you that have had their battles with it, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Now that I am back into reality, it is up to me to make the best of it, and that I will.

I have put off many things this summer, and I don't know how much of them I can get back, but I do know that I am still going to take the Foreign Service Officer test, the one scheduled in June and had to be rescheduled to sometime in October. I have a life ahead of me, and no matter what reality throws at me, I'm still going to catch it and play it back -- there is no other choice; for a traveler can never travel if he stops.

Onward and forward.