I’m curious about how I’m going to handle this latest round of setback from injury. Curiosity is not my primary emotion, let me be very clear about that. But it’s the one I’m willing to talk about right now. 

I’m curious whether I’m going to feel more resilient or less when I come out the other side. I’m curious whether setbacks like this get easier to handle, the more often you experience them. I’m curious whether there are more lessons to learn from injury, ones I didn’t already pick up from my experiences so far.

Is curiosity an emotion? I’m not so sure that it is. But it seems like a fairly neutral state for my inner monologue to stew in. This situation is fresh enough that I don’t yet have perspective and haven’t learned anything new, so I haven’t yet embraced the silver linings. I’m in that cloud of feeling where just when I think I’m getting ahold of myself and calming down, someone asks how I’m doing…and I break down. This is how I know that I’m still in a reactive phase. This is how I know that I’m still in the feel-my-feelings stage of this latest incident. 

I don’t really understand what happened and I don’t know what the future holds, which makes curiosity a means through which I can poke and prod these two things without getting wrapped up in the fear. Not knowing is scary. Curiosity offers a small bit of distance and room for hope.

I’m curious if something I wrote a few days ago still feels as sharp today. Let’s look:

“I’m afraid. I’ve hurt my back again and all the remembered fear, frustration, pain, and panic is instantly here. I’m trying hard to not catastrophize the situation. Surely it’s not another disc herniation. But did I re-injure the tissue I’ve been working so hard to heal? Five months with no back pain and then this—I’m literally on the floor. What the fuck.”

…

It is less sharp by a hair.