My Life Now [Saturday Personal Post]

Yesterday was a rather alarming, loud, and absurd wake up call for myself. For many reasons, and to keep this as far from feeling as webMD as possible, I am chronically ill. I have been diagnosed with Adult Onset Stills Disease, which is a rare form of arthritis. I also have FME. This "journey", we will call it, began last summer with a pesky rash and some worrying fevers. 

Since then, my life has changed drastically. I realize, and sometimes with a heavy heart, that I am not a typical twenty-something. It is very difficult for me to hold a job. It is very difficult for me to socialize. I have seen myself diminish a bit in light and optimism, and that was quite possibly the most heart wrenching.

Living, as it's own sense of being, has become difficult in it's own terms. 

Usually, when it comes to my illnesses, I keep myself together. I carry on knowing that I am strong, I am a fighter, I am a creative person with a voice who is willing to share it as loudly as they can. But when you have an illness that can bring on many senses of isolation, it can also barter negative thinking and quite a grand dose of self loathing. I was stuck like a broken record. Constantly reminding myself of what I lost. My former life, many friends, etc. The mental list at the time seemed like endless scrolls painting themselves across my skull. It weighed me down significantly. I grieved quite deeply, fully. All that time I spent growing as a person was beginning to vanish before me. 


All because I was simply thinking the wrong thing.

"My life then" or "My life before".

I would fight to be that person I was, over and over, until muscles were sore and my face was weighed heavily down by all the masks I tried to wear at once to keep up the persona of who I was before. It became an exhausting act that I put on day to day, down to each and every millisecond. I don't think many realize that we have to mourn our former selves, our former lives, before we can begin carrying on. It just happened to take me quite a very long year. It took me a year to state the most important thing I could have possibly said in all that suffering,

"My life now".

My life now is filled with love and care from family and friends who aided in building me quite the intricate support system. My life now threw me into discovering literature I never before fathomed or questioned. It granted me the chance to dive head first into self education with accessible teaching sources. Things may be a little slower, yes, but now that I am slower I notice so much more. I see how the trees move together when the wind is barely a whisper. I feel the shade granted by a singular cloud on a sunny day. I am now very much able to freeze my own time and indulge in watching conversations of others, love others share with each other. Reunions, accomplishments, love.

Love.

My life now is a symphony of discovery I am now getting my hands right into. Yes, some days I cry. Some days I am filled with fear and dread, but then I remember all I have gained compared to what I had previously lost. 

My life now is a quite, constant humming of thought and emotion I cannot possibly begin to explain with the ease and gentleness of how it is felt. I will face storms, yes. But I have face many. I will face fear, yes. But I have conquered so much. I have become my own force of nature, even if that force can barely move a leaf. The point is, it did move. And I moved it.

My Life Now is a gift of discovery and re-learning how to love all of me. Even the damaged parts. 

And for now, it is a life I can accept. 

- Spencer