I'm in a funk. I tried explaining it to The Socialist yesterday, but the process of exposition is made difficult by the fact that I can't actually explain it to even myself.
I think that, in part, it's got to do with the fact that I'm now nearly eleven months post-transplant. This time last year I was preparing to die. (That's different from saying that I was expecting to die, so don't anybody go getting their knickers in a twist.) I had come to terms with the idea that I had a fatal illness, and that each day that passed without a phone call from the hospital increased the odds that I wasn't going to be getting a new liver in time. I had written my will and made my wishes on certain items known to those who would have to deal with what ever messes I left behind. And then, a month later, I got the call, and the new liver.
It's as though I was expecting some great change to come over the world after my transplant. The Salamander had passed through fire, and was evidently expecting some grand new life on the other side of the burn pit. Reality parallels myth only so far though.
It might be a new liver, but it's the same old world. The moment of miracle happened, and there is a part of me that will never be the same. But the moment of miracle is past, and there's been no magical transformation, no deep and meaningful epiphanies, nothing that transcends the mundane since that day last May. I am no different now from the me I was last year. And while it was unreasonable to expect anything else, it would seem that I was anticipating something more, at least on a subconscious level. I'm left feeling empty, and at loose ends. In a word, I'm in a funk.
The universe has no reasons, but I am still looking for the reason for everything that has happened to me. The religious would say I'm looking for the hand of God and the will of God in all this. The more pedantic would say I'm looking for meaning where none exists. Both are true, and neither. I just want to make more of my life than I have. If you make your own meaning, I'm doing a lousy job of it.