Crushing Crushing

I think this is the first time in my life I can say I don't really have a crush on anyone. As long as I can remember I've had someone on my mind, someone I was eager to see, someone who made my heart race and my laughter become high-pitched and giggily, and now there's no one. It's not a bad thing, it's a very different thing. In high school and especially college there was this influx of people and ideas and situations that cultivated romantic ideas, or just provided the breeding ground for them. Now, in this post-collegiate world, the influx has dwindled drastically, so I'm not meeting those new faces, I'm not constantly surrounded by groups of my peers. The components of life are so very different, and so I shouldn't be in the least surprised to see that my crushing has gotten crushed in a way. It's kind of a relief to grow out of it.

On a much more dangerous note, today I was doing my own internal debrief of the biography of Edna St.Vincent Millay that I just read (I am an obsessive debriefer. I do this with almost everything. I blame being head OL, working at ALI, and Dr. Julie Rawls White. Drives my friends crazy) because I see some terrifying parallels in my own life and I don't want to self-distruct as she did...though I wouldn't mind that Pulitzer... In her 20s Vincent developed chronic and mysterious pains in her neck and back that left her bedridden for days on end, and, after 30 years of it, found her a serious alcoholic addicted to morphine and other painkillers. She was left physically unable to do the simple actions of those around her, and if the drugs didn't kill her the frustration would have.
I understand why she found her way there. I really do.
Pain can drive the most intelligent beings to the most reckless and stupid actions. And not just physical pain--we want to, need to, dull our way through the sharp angles and edges that pain creates. Ignoring it only works for so long. Prayer works for some, therapy for others, mediation and health food for still more. Any way to numb that pain, to ease it for any amount of time can be well worth it if it is relentless and pressing as chronic pain is. I don't blame her. I worry about my lust for that numbness and how I seek it. I need reprieve, and these icy-hot patches on my back only work for so long. I'm not saying that I'm switching to morphine but I worry about what (and how) I try to lay my burden down.