one woman’s journey navigating a new normal
I gripped the kitchen counter, my arms straight as a board trying to brace myself against the extreme pain that had begun shortly after eating last night’s small, plain meal. My stomach was as hard as a rock and bloated like I was four months pregnant. It felt like it was being tightly twisted and rung out like an old dish towel.
I discovered that if I’m strong enough to be weak enough, I’m given a wound that never heals. It’s this gift that keeps my heart open. I discovered that joy – real joy that doesn’t deny what’s difficult in our lives – is a choice. Joy finds us when we’re willing to acknowledge that we belong – to ourselves; to another; to the world; to the mystery that is so much larger than ourselves.
Each one of us has challenges we must learn to cope with throughout our lives. But no matter what we have to face, having each other to turn to for support, sharing, and love in our moments of defeat and success is vital to our capacity to cope with these challenges. Trying to take on life alone — along with not searching for peace and purpose despite the challenges - can become too overwhelming and for some, a reason to lose hope.
December 1, 2011. A day of beginnings and endings. 10 years ago today I underwent a 10-1/2 hour surgery that gave me my life back. I was reborn at the age of 52 with the promise of less pain, fewer hospitalizations, the ability to eat again, the ability to live again.
I’ve hit that wall again where I’m disheartened and overwhelmed. I’ve faced this throughout the 15 years I’ve been sick, and I know I’ll muster the strength to do what needs to be done, but today, in this moment, I’m grieving for what was and will never be again.
The truth is I don’t know what to say; don’t know what to feel; can’t possibly understand the depths of sorrow and pain so many have been forced to scale since terrorists crashed American planes into American buildings and took the lives of more than 3,000.
I work so hard not to let my illness and my various health issues define me. The gratitude I feel and share with the world is real. It’s sacred. It has sustained me many times when I couldn't see the hope, the future, or a place for me in it. Gratitude saved my life.
Since my relationship ended a year ago, I’ve done a lot of thinking and processing. It’s been necessary for me to come to an understanding about why certain patterns have continually played out in my life.
When your hair is aflame with winter and you have decades of learning and leaving and loving sewn into the corners of your eyes and your children come home to find their own history in your face.
I am not old…she said
I am rare.
I am the standing ovation
At the end of the play.
I am the retrospective
Of my life as art
I am the hours
Connected like dots
Into good sense
I am the fullness
Of existing.
You Don't Look Sick Blog 