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lumine-no-hikari · 1 month ago

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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #420

For reasons that are unclear to me, I felt a lot better upon waking than I felt all day yesterday!

...Seriously, I wish there was some kind of formula that I could follow, such that I could definitively identify the causes of me getting into weird funks, and then take steps to avoid those causes. Oh well.

I had two appointments today. One was physical therapy; today I saw P, the owner, because K is going to be out for a long time, due to his horrifying leg injury. I asked her about a donation box for K, but... she said that she's not going to do that unless he indicates that he's having trouble.

...I don't understand. But... the boundary has been set. I can respect a boundary, even if I don't understand it.

We worked on strengthening my injured leg. I dunno if I mentioned this or if you recall, but... a long time ago, around when I was 22, I tried jumping over a concrete wall that I've jumped over many times before. But that time, I didn't make it, and my left shin struck the sharp edge of the concrete. The whole front of my lower left leg was purple for like two weeks, and I couldn't walk on it. Apparently, I damaged the nerve enough to weaken the muscles it feeds, but not enough to disable it completely. So nowadays, I have a hard time moving my toes on my left foot, raising my foot, and pushing off the ground with my foot. I walk with a bit of a limp. The brace I have for my left leg helps when I gotta be on my feet for a long time. Before the brace, I used to get pretty bad pain at night while I was trying to sleep.

It took 10 years of bouncing from doctor to doctor about it to get anyone to take the injury seriously. K proposed that part of my rib issue comes from the fact that I put most of my weight on my right leg (because obviously); when we put our weight on one side, our ribs on that same side get all compressed and weird, and this causes problems. So the idea is that if we strengthen my left leg, then there will be fewer problems.

Well. Today, I did left-leg bridges. I also stood from a sitting position using just my left leg. I also practiced raising just my big toe on my left foot (that one in particular was hard at first!!). My right leg can do so much more than my left, when it comes to those things. It's easy to do a bridge with just my right leg. It's easy to stand from sitting with just my right leg. It's easy to move my right big toe. But doing any of these things with my left leg is... hard.

...It'll get better though, if I keep practicing. I have exercises I'm supposed to do every day, and you can bet your cute little bottom that I'm gonna do 'em.

...Or rather, I'll bet my own cute little bottom, because I guess that's what's at stake here if I don't do them. For sure, after doing all this, the left side of my butt feels a little weak; the muscles tremble when I try to walk or stand. Hopefully my body will strengthen the area by the time I wake in the morning. If I don't end up with Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, I'm gonna do it all again tomorrow.

...I'm gonna do it because I want a body that works. And I'm worth the effort and discomfort it's gonna take to get there. It's not as bad as getting 4 perfectly healthy teeth yanked out to fix up my bite so that my jaw can work; if I can do that, I can do anything.

...The right side of my jaw clicks a lot less now. I don't chew things as weirdly as before. Tomorrow, I'll change over to a new set of braces, and it's just... wild to me, how far along I've come.

After physical therapy, I went to report my progress to the orthopedic. He was pleased to hear that K's exercises seem to be working for me. He suggested something called “dry needling” to help ease the tension in the space between my right shoulder blade and spine.

...Basically, the idea of “dry needling” is that the doctor stabs the shit out of tight muscles with very thin needles to get them to stop spasming all to hell. When a muscle stays in a spasmed state for a long time, the tension stops the muscle from properly receiving blood and nutrients and stuff, which I guess prevents the muscle from going back to its relaxed state. Then the area gets acidic, and then the nerves nearby get all pissed off. I guess stabbing the area gets the muscles to knock it the fuck off, because it increases blood flow and prompts your body to flush out the area and send in endorphins.

Bodies are fucken wild, man. Holy shit.

So... I guess all that is gonna take place in a couple weeks. I'm a little nervous, because apparently the recovery afterwards is kind of annoying. But... it can't be worse than getting 4 teeth yanked out at once. And I survived that. So...

...Man, at this point... whatever might get my ribs and shoulder to behave... I'll try. I don't even care anymore. I just want my limbs to work without pain.

On the way back, J and I went to a place that has a bunch of different restaurants inside. I got something called “birria tacos”. I don't really know what it involves. But... it basically seemed like tacos “au jus”. It was really good! Here's a picture...

...I got some horchata to go with it. It's some really good stuff, and... I wish I could share some with you.

Ma from work came by to visit after that. I tried asking An to come, too, because An has similar interests, but he had other things he had to do, which is fair. So Ma and I played Mario Party on his Switch for a while, and then we ordered pizza, and then we watched this awesome video about the history of people trying to surpass the limits of Tetris:

It was a delightful video! I learned that there are some astoundingly good players of Tetris out there! I saw one of them, after trying for a long time to achieve a particular goal, cry tears of joy and relief from finally achieving that goal, and it was a very beautiful thing. Here:

youtube

Do you remember, in my very first letter to you, back before I had this space on the internet, in which I told you that the peoples of my world are astoundingly creative weavers of media and other forms of entertainment? This is a very good example. All of these people, taking a simple game of stacking blocks, and trying to find ways of surpassing both their own limits and the limits imposed by the medium itself... it's a beautiful thing. This sort of surpassing of limits is one of many things that the peoples of my world are known for.

You also seem to have a love for surpassing your limits. Sephiroth... you're a lot more human than you think. You're really not all that different from the rest of us, you know. I promise.

If you're worried about the wing making you less human... Sephiroth, people in my world have various numbers of limbs. Some of them are born with extra. Some of them are born with fewer. Some of them need to get limbs removed. That doesn't make them less human. So you have an extra one – strong, soft, fluffy, and feathered. So what? It's just another limb. And it's even well-formed and functional! Score!

If you're worried that your mako eyes and slit pupils make you less human... Sephiroth, lots of people in my world are born with eyes that don't even work. I'm one of them. Some people's eyes don't work even with glasses. Some people's have got cataracts. Some people have a genetic problem called Wilson's disease, where their body sticks copper deposits in their irises, and they get Kayser-Fleischer rings. Some people get their sclera tattooed. Others end up drinking too much colloidal silver (don't do that!) and get silver deposits in their eyes. Some people have a coloboma or iridodialysis. These people are still human. Sephiroth... mako deposits aren't that weird. Slit pupils aren't that weird. It's just the sample pool of humans you've met is too small.

If you're worried about the Jenova cells making you less human... Sephiroth. Even humans in my world get viral infections. Yes, it sometimes changes their DNA – HPV certainly does that, and a bunch of others do, too. Yes, all humans carry every viral infection they've ever had in their bodies all the time – their immune system is just keeping them in check. A human body is composed of more bacterial cells than human cells – just take a look at anyone's gut flora. It's not that weird. Granted, having a telepathic connection with an interplanetary parasite that wants to swallow your world whole isn't exactly ideal, per se. But... your planet seemed to help Genesis, in the end. It could probably help you, too.

You're not less human for the things that were done to you.

Did you hear me?

You're not less human for the things that were done to you.

Come to my world and see. You'll find that you have so much more in common with everyone here than you think. Come to my world and get your perspective broadened and your conditioning challenged. My world certainly has a lot of problems, and on some days I certainly do feel very bitter about that because I'm human and I have a lot of challenges weighing me down, and I get tired sometimes, but... overall, people want to be good. It's just that a lot of them carry pain that makes it hard for them to make good choices. Kinda like you sometimes, because... you're human.

Let's try to surpass our own limits together, okay? You and me. Take my hand; we'll do all kinds of fun and scary and brave and wholesome things, and we'll mess it up and fall down, and get back up and brush ourselves off and try again. We'll do our best to fix the things we broke or to build something new from all the things we've learned. And we'll go to sleep and wake up the next day, knowing a little more than we did yesterday. And we'll do it all again, except better because we'll have more choices at our disposal.

Let's try it. We can try it together. You don't have to try it alone.

...I guess that's it for now; it's getting pretty late. I should go to sleep.

I love you. No matter what happens, I'll always love you. So please stay safe out there, okay? Please come back home in one piece. Please don't destroy yourself by going and picking fights you can't win. Try building something instead. Try restoring the broken things instead. Try healing the wounds in people's hearts, and then watch them turn around and make better choices than they could before.

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

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