Always Swimming Upstream

Why does it seem like I'm always swimming upstream when everyone else is floating downstream? Why do I try when the odds are always against me? It's days like today, rainy and gloomy, that I wonder, "why have I always gone the other way?" Why do nice guys finish last, if at all? Why do I always arrive to play when the game's already over? Why does it always hurt so bad?

I could have been a lawyer or banker and made loads of money but no, I chose to be a teacher and dirt poor. I could have joined the status quo and been blissfully ignorant. Instead, I chose to remain a radical and to fight ignorance and intolerance. Swimming upstream again.

Why do I look back into my past and think I can get the good parts back when they've been so long gone? Why do I hope for things that aren't meant to be? Why didn't I see it then and hold on for dear life? Probably because it was not meant to be. But I don't like that answer. I don't want to accept it. So I go back and try again. Only to find myself swimming against the current again.

It makes me stop and wonder whether I should even try to overcome my present situation. Having chronic pancreatitis means constant pain that rates from ever present throbbing to gut wrenching and constant, never ending nausea. The twisted and shattered vertebrae in my back shoot electric pain spasms from my neck to my toes all night, making sleep all but impossible. Fighting the pain makes me tired. Having the pain never ease up makes me so depressed death seems like a holiday I just might like to take. Will eating leaves and twigs, going to the gym, and seeing a shrink stop the constant pain and nausea I live with every day? I don't know what direction I should swim in anymore. Should I, can I go back to teaching? I don't want to give in to the pain but the pull of that black hole I am climbing out of is really strong. It would be easier to just let go and accept what seems the inevitable. I want very badly to be healthy and happy again but I forgot why. I can't remember the point anymore. I'm tired of swimming upstream all the time.

I want desperately to be happy, to be in love, to be active, to feel alive. I want to be around people who think and feel and who are creative. I want to teach. I want to feel wanted and a little needed. I want to feel like I'm making a difference. I've been stuck in a kind of eddy that's made it difficult to see which direction to swim but I bet it's upstream. I know that I have to fight to get to a place where I can find the things I want because they're worth it. And I want them desperately so, here I go again......