20211109 : the Promise

When I was lying in the hospital - probably 2 months into my stroke. I used to lay thinking away into the night. Anyway my sleep cycle was all over the place and it used to be a miracle if I fell asleep for 2 hrs..

I had just started to move my toes and fingers on my left side. I could feel nothing on my right.

On one of those nights, I prayed to God to somehow restore movement on the right side. (That was my dominant side and I couldn't imagine life without it).

I made a promise that I will give my best to somehow strengthen it and not give up if I got that movement back .

Now, 32 months later, I don't know if there is a God, or a Creator or a Supreme Power or some other equivalent... The promise I made, has turned internal.

I have cheated a number of times in my exams. Mostly for the thrill of it. On a few occasions genuinely out of desperation.

In adult life, there have been many instances where I have found a convenient excuse - to not do something. The excuses seem very genuine when they have come to me. It doesn't feel like cheating.

Many of these are things I told to no one else but myself. It was still possible to make valid excuses to myself and not feel like I have cheated and cut corners.

But this promise - which has turned internal, I don't know to whom when I say 'myself', because this one, I am unable to cheat.

Whether it is during physio or oral feeding or anything else, when I find an excuse to give up - it comes back to haunt me. And I keep at it.

It is not that I do everything. The physical capacity is real and hits the limit somewhere. But something doesn't allow the mind to quit before the body.

I don't know who or what is different with this version of 'self' inside that I am unable to cheat or make excuses to...