Shamefully I have come to acknowledge (admittedly by my own tribulation) another of life’s passports or identification credentials; namely, recovery. Upon the most blasé assessment it is readily and at times as squeamishly apparent that a number of people whom I know as friends have suffered and continue to endure what as speedily qualifies as outstanding recovery from an unprovoked or unanticipated incident or from an existing and hitherto prolonged condition. These atmospheric elaborations of psyche and physical states are nonetheless of such treacherous detail that their avoidance is by consequence a peril to their publicity.  These calamities are not subjects about which we enthusiastically conflate. Some for example involve critical accidents; others hazardous cancerous malignancy or seeimingly irreversible addiction; others are putatively confined to materialistic corruption or erosion; but in each instance, the friend has unequivocally confronted a life-altering obstruction (including one instance of self-induced and professionally authorized suicide).

Initially the reaction of the herd to the misfortune of one of them is tangible.  But it inevitably becomes apparent that we, the casual outsiders and observers, are clearly no better qualified to address the cause of the particular commotion than the professionals. Nor is the conversancy of our invovlement heightened by our alleged familiarity (as opposed to the acceptable distraction of the professionals). Instead those who are the apparent targets of this misfortune are seemingly put aside and left to enhance themselves as best they can, surrounded instead by a collection of accumulated verbiage such as the following:

a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength;
signs of recovery in the housing market;
recovery from illness or exertion;
the human body has amazing powers of recuperation;
time spent recovering from an illness or medical treatment;
rehabilitation;
the action of restoring someone to health or normal life through training and therapy after imprisonment, addiction, or illness;
she underwent rehabilitation and was walking within three weeks;
the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again;
the action or process of coming together to support a person or cause or take concerted action;
improvement;
a quick or marked recovery after a reverse or a period of weakness;
the market staged a late rally;
an improvement or upward trend, especially in economic conditions or someone’s fortunes;
a return by a well-known person, especially an entertainer or sports player, to the activity in which they have formerly been successful;
a revival in the fortunes of the party;
an instance of resuming an activity or state after an interruption.

Knowing what if anything to do in the face of these dilemmas is probably irrelevant. Recovery ultimately reduces to a singularly personal focus and absorption.  Nor is recovery merely a simple objective of calculated improvement by specified acts. Interfering with this abbreviated agenda is the uncomfortable insinuation of pain, depression and oft-times religious attachment, none of which ensures relief or improvement.  And then there is the looming possibility of the trial which lies ahead for any one of us (frequenty glowingly dismissed as yet another advantage of old age).

The best we can hope for is a sustained appetite and a need for rest and relaxation (and maybe, as my late father so often raphsodized, “a complete evacuation”). The imperatives of life are just that simple, illustrative of growth and change. A withering weed will collapse overnight. Betwixt these disadvantages and the expression of our personal meaning is the reality of our conviction and necessity. Just how long we contine to enforce the parameters of existence is sometimes controversial. It is easy to invoke the gauge of recovery to others; however the well-sayers are unwittingly controlled by their own persuasion and internal combustion. Stepping across the boundaries of separation in these reversals is neither effortless nor phlegmatic.