+ Holy cow! Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic! Castles, monasteries, cathedrals, singing beautiful music with a lovely, young choir! Wow! The last time I went was almost 10 years ago!
1. - And it was almost a total disaster. I was at the lowest point in my health since my senior year of high school. I was in constant pain, my asthma and allergies were rowdy, I wasn't getting more than a couple hours of sleep a night, and my immune system was a mess. I was cold all the time, too exhausted to go exploring, and didn't really have anyone in the group that I was very close to. It was miserable. I ended up getting so sick I missed a performance and was too sick to even care.
2. + My health is much improved since then! I don't get 6 sinus infections a year that last for a month! My allergies and asthma don't lay me flat all the time! I have meds to make sure I get at least 4 hours of sleep a night at least a couple times a week! My pain is much more controlled, my thyroid is functioning again, and I am generally not nearly as miserable due to undiagnosed health problems!
3. - My health is improved because now that I have diagnoses and have gotten treatment, I have ways to deal with symptoms. Most of these ways involve controlling things. Controlling environmental allergies by staying indoors in filtered environments, controlling humidity, controlling what I sleep on, controlling my schedule to make sure there's enough time for rest and that I'm moving when I need to move, controlling my temperature, what and when I eat, how and where I exercise, what and when I drink, when I go to bed and wake up, and making good choices to not spike my progress. I will have none of that control on this trip. There is really no option to rest when I need to or control my schedule. I will not be able to withdraw to get my parasympathetic nervous system working. I could undo all the progress I've made in the past few years. I could end up in pain all the time for months as a result. I REALLY DON'T WANT (the very realistic) FEAR OF PAIN TO BE THE DECISION MAKER. I also don't want some weird mid-life crisis "Pain won't control me" rebellion crap to be the decision maker either.
4. + I would get to make beautiful music in beautiful places!
5. - Unless I got totally sick again! How frustrating would that be! To have the opportunity and not be able to enjoy it because of being sick.
6. + Seriously what are the chances I will ever even have this opportunity to make this kind of music in these kinds of places ever again?! I'm not getting younger, and there is no guarantee I won't be less able to go in the future. Seize the day!
7. - I whacked my knee on a chair a few years ago and have had limited mobility ever since. There are consequences for walking too much, not walking enough, walking for too long, using stairs, standing too long, sitting too long, walking on uneven ground, walking on slick or icy or frozen ground, losing my balance, slipping. These things are all going to be required, and then I'll have to stand to sing concert-length performances. (This has been a huge struggle, and it was only last year that I was able to actually do it. I had to rest for months afterward to get my pain back under control, and the concert was somewhat torturous in terms of pain.) Will I be miserable going to these beautiful places and not being able to explore them? I'm a climb-all-the-staircases-in-the-castle and look-around-everywhere kind of person. I can't do that anymore. Will it feel frustrating and awful to only be able to look at the beauty I can't explore anymore? If I have to sit on the sidelines in cafes on flat ground just looking at things I can't explore from a distance, will that by incredibly frustrating and leave me feeling lonely. And what if some person feels like they need to keep me company and misses out (and annoys me while trying to pityingly keep me company when I just want to be alone with my misery)?
8. + I have the vacation time I would need for the first time ever. And it's cheaper than going alone. (I would spend this much money on the airfare and hotel alone.)
9. - I would likely still be going alone because I would have no close friends on the trip and would likely have to expend lots of my limited energy interacting politely with strangers waaay younger than me on the tour bus for long periods of time. Or adults much wealthier than me with which I might have nothing more than a love of amateur music in common with.
10. + I can afford it. Barely. This is the first time in my adult life that I can say that. Coincidence?
11. - I have the money. But I also have appliances that are going to break and need replacing soon. There are also lots of other things I could use the money on.
- more savings in case of medical or other emergencies
- contributions to my friends who are going to be medical missionaries in Africa
- larger gifts to charities doing great work to help the homeless, free slaves, support families of martyrs
- replace increasingly aggressive, leprous bathroom floor and get a soaker tub to continue to reduce my pain levels
- purchase a piece of beautiful art by Yudong Shen (https://www.facebook.com/MeiLinArtStudio), so I could add to the beauty in my home that I can enjoy every day (this thought makes me as delirious with joy as the thought of getting to sing in cathedrals and old churches)
- pay down student loan debt
- pay down car debt after I was rear-ended and had my car totaled earlier this year
- save up for Yellowstone trip with friends from college next summer (I'll have to pay for lodgings for myself that have AC/environmental filtering controls, so it'll be expensive)
- save up to take my sister to Japan to climb Mt. Fuji some day
So, those are some of my thoughts, and I have to make a decision soon. If you have thoughts or advice or opinions about whether I should go or not go, please feel free to comment below or email/message me. Thanks for your time and assistance and wisdom. : D
Love,
TMIA
Posts
Pilgrimage. If you do this, it will be a pilgrimage.
ReplyDeleteYou will suffer. You will be awed. You will hate yourself and everyone around you. You will feel one with everything around you.
If you can hold your mind in the place that sees the moment, and accepts the moment as why you came, then you will come back better for it.
If you expect to enjoy everything, that you will transcend the pain and frustration I see you in daily from your condition, you are deluded.
If you accept that pain and disorientation and frustration are part of the experience, an experience you will likely not be offered too many times, then you have a more realistic base to begin.
Pilgrimages were about suffering, not bliss.