Tag Archives: confinement

Bedridden

Bedridden: (adj) confined to bed by sickness or old age.Dictionary B

Perhaps the greatest problem with the word “sick” is that it always travels with its two companions: “tired” and “discouraged.”

So if you try to be sick but hopeful, it is very difficult.

For a very brief season I found myself bedridden due to illness. I will reserve the details of this confinement for another time.

But my main memory is that I was in a hospital on the fourth floor, looking out the window at life below me, and realizing that I had been extracted from it. Efforts at optimism, prospects of prayer and sensations to plan my future seemed pointless.

If I were going to escape the hospital, I would only find myself in a limited capacity, unable to pursue my dreams and travel around, sharing my heart.

Although the term “bedridden” refers to a physical position, it is not long before your brain, your spirit, your talent and your hopes lie down in submission. I was convinced that the things I had set out to do in my life were being “tabled” in favor of a “chair.”

I don’t know what shook me out of it. Maybe it’s because self-pity tried to smother me to death.

  • I fought back.
  • I disagreed with my own negative prognosis.
  • And eventually, I regained my life.

This is why on some nights when I feel particularly energized I find it difficult to sleep. The idea of reclining in a bed is not always a positive one to me.

And because of that experience, I will always believe that getting up is better than lying down.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

 

 

 

Alley

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alley: (n) 1. a narrow passageway between or behind buildings. 2. a long, narrow area in which games such as bowling are played.

Alleys give me the heebie-jeebies.

Even during the daytime, when somebody tells me to go back in the alley to unload or pick something up, I find myself suddenly surrounded by trash cans and stray cats–neither of which I like, by the way.

Maybe it’s the feeling of confinement. I am certainly a little claustrophobic. (You can tell when a writer’s claustrophobic because he hates short sentences and opts for run-ons.)

Seriously, alleys are freaky.

  • Is there any television mystery that does not start with cops discovering a dead body in an alley somewhere?
  • Was anything ever invented in an alley?
  • Did we discover the cure for a disease in an alley?

Matter of fact, it’s difficult to even use the word “alley” without adding the adjective, “back.”

I guess the only interesting thing about an alley is that since you can’t go too far frontwards and backwards, you’re always looking up.

I thought when I went bowling the first time, I could overcome my disdain for alleys by enjoying this fascinating game. But the reason they call it a bowling alley is that there is a narrow passage with danger at the end.

Case in point: my first bowling score was 52, which, as you may know, is very poor. And then I discovered that if I threw the ball down with wild abandon, with a crazy hook, somehow or another it would swing around and hit the head pin. This seemed to work for a couple of tosses, until I began to get a universal split, with two pins on each side, impossible to make.

So I peaked at 165, which is still what I say is my average when people ask me. I feel confident in misleading them because I have no intention of actually proving my prowess in front of them. For it’s been years since I’ve gone bowling.

The whole experience is similar to a back alley. You have the nasty process of sticking your feet in rented shoes that others have worn many times before you, having your inadequacy lit up above your head, as your failure in scoring pins is illuminated for all to see, and knowing that at the end of the experience of being in this alley, you will be humiliated and stripped of all your pride.

So I guess it is fair to say that I don’t like alleys.

(Matter of fact, I’m going to close now . I feel a little cramped and creepy.)