Still

I hate cages. I can handle tight spaces for a time, and I can relax during a very pokey and proddy nerve test (those shenanigans were crazy), but when I'm stuck behind this really intense heather gray mask with no elbow room, I feel as though my head will soon bleed from discomfort, swallowing is prohibited despite my drainage-cursed throat, and I've a nose-itch going on twenty minutes.
And I'm supposed to be still.
Oh, to have my second MRI in a week. It's a true test to one who is always tapping a foot, chewing a nail, clearing the throat, picking a cuticle, and twirling dry-as-corn-shuck hair. (It's STILL dry!)I also stayed up too late watching It's Complicated (God, I love Meryl Streep and Steve Martin...), so I slept in, missed breakfast, and realized that it was too late in the day to eat/drink anything due to the requirements of getting an MRI on your neck. So I went in there starving with a raw throat, thirsty as Jack Sparrow, with a dull headache to only be magnified by that god-awful mask and lack of a pillow in the MRI tube of mental testing. (Luckily, that handsome voice of Oz was back again...cuter than ever. Sigh.)
As much fun as I always have watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, I live to hear Paul Varjak (V-a-r-j-a-k) bring Holly Golightly to real-life terms in his dramatic spiel about how she only put herself in that cage she tries so hard to evade. (Sorry, I'll now be transitioning into more serious depths of life, contemplation, and my personal state. Forgive me.)
I evade things a lot; sometimes confrontation, sometimes ignorant bliss. When I feel confined, I try to run like hell and cast off my cage to someone else. In moments when my skin prickles, my face sinks, and I convince myself I'm NOT having hot flashes, I need a Paul Varjak. Or perhaps an awesome mystical/cosmic figure like Cleo (is the name right?) from the Matrix or even Mammie from Gone with the Wind.
I'm on a break, sure. I'm away from Tonga, work, pressure, etc. But I'm at a time in my service where I feel very, very caged--especially in a city full of concrete. This is normal, so I don't want to turn anyone off to volunteer service, PC, or my life in general, but surely you can relate.
With every answer I get about my service, my job, I have more questions because I realize how uninformed or inadequate I am.
And THAT, dear friends, is where I find the source of all my smothered cagey feeling. Inadequacy. I often do self-mental checks if I'm feeling overly squeamish, overly discontent, overly happy, etc. Not for skepticism's sake, but just because I like to keep a nice balance. And often, I feel that my discontent is with the way others make me feel inadequate, or, more often than not, how inadequately I pin myself.
I've built my own cage with my own set of skills, yet I'm 23, have a variety of experiences, and have no idea what I'm capable of. Inadequacy should have nothing to do with anything.
So I'm celebrating life out of the MRI cage, I'm massaged the tension out of my neck, and I just downed a panini, a blueberry muffin, and a pot of peppermint tea. And I'm still marveling at this beautiful Henna tattoo I got at an Indian fair downtown. (And no, Mom, it's not permanent!)
To life, folks. To life.