If you are a follower of my blogs you would be aware my Mother has been through a lot with multiple breaks to her ankle in a farming accident that preceded my several broken bones by several weeks, fortunately for me it has been great for her to pass on her experiences to me. One such part of her recovery was extreme melancholy around week 5. Despite my rapid recovery thanks to my lucky inheritance of very good genes from my folks and my young age, she was spot on.

It has been about a week of pretty bad depression, insomnia that has lasted since the incident and now a total frustration with being caged in. I had a great friend come and make dinner for me last night, all I wanted was for him to get to his NYE party and this morning when my mate was doing my laundry and offering to make breakfast I actually had to ask him to leave. Such is the total and utter frustration and annoyance with having anyone see me in this state. It;s not that I am unappreciative, but my body feels strong, the injuries of smashing into a southern Queensland field (pre-flood so the ground was harder....) are confined to an ankle that doesn't work and a hand that can't hold anything...but everything else is bursting to be free of this shackle on my freedom. All I want to do is scream, cry and yell and get out of me this incredible and overwhelming unspent energy that has me wound up like a thousand accumulator springs (farmers know what that means but basically its a bloody big spring that has enormous pressure on it on a plough)

However I am so fortunate to have my mothers wise words always in the back of my head. She warned me of this impending frustration and angst, and luckily for me I am hardly the first that has felt bound to a prison of the loss of freedom due to being bed bound thanks to a buggered leg.

For me the poem 'Invictus' about being undefeated by all that life throws at you gives me incredible strength to suck it up and if anything draw strength from this experience so that when its something other than my own body holding me prisoner I will endure it.

The poem originally was written without a title.....I think I understand why, for there really is no words in our English language that express this sense of imprisonment within ones own body which at the same time has a mix of incredible defiance from the soul....which leads to an ongoing battle within. 

I didn't want to write any more blogs about the downsides of what is happening but I promised someone I would keep writing my blogs, as I stopped writing in the past whenever negativity overcame me. You would note that there were long absences from my diary. But in writing this I do truly understand the last lines of the poem.

'I am the Master of my Fate:

 I am the Captain of my Soul.'

 I hope you too can draw from this wonderful expression of 'INVICTUS'.