I'm here.

Have you noticed the writer's block?  Everything that I want to write now comes to me as I'm trying to fall asleep at night.  I beg myself to get up and write it down, but then promise myself that I'll remember it the next day and drift off (ambien free now thank you very much...that stuff is nuts). 

Anyway, lots to say.  Good things.  Happy things.  I'm trying to tie up life as I know it here and brace myself for life from now on.  I was in my last counseling session today looking at the progress in the last 6 months. wow.  uh, yeah - i needed me some counseling.  As I'm turning the big 30 in a few weeks, I feel I am doing it in such a better place, and space, and I'm really grateful for that. I think it would have been really hard to make that transition into my 30's as low and hopeless as I was.

In honor of that...I'm going to post something that I've gone back and forth, back and forth about, deciding whether or not to share it for public consumption.  I wrote this on a really bad day, a really sick day - a day I wanted out. By the end of this particular day, I had had quite a sense of clarity and peace and I officially chose to be positive.  I think this day might have been the first day of the rest of my life.

 I took this into my counselor once and she said it was the most raw thing she'd ever read. Since my primary goal with this is to give a unashamed voice to what this illness is, can be, and could be, I'm going to include it.  without further ado...

Today I chose joy.  Instead of it. I finally got the courage to climb up and stand on top of it.  I am not nearly as tall as it or nearly as mighty, yet little ole me climbed to the very tip top and took my stance.  I am weary of trying to conquer it, trying to crush it, trying to level it underneath my unshakeable will.

For 5 years now, I have sat in silence.  Silently suffering.  Silently denying.  Scared to hope for a cure yet even more scared to admit that there just isn’t one.  Scared to think of it as my partner in this life. 

How did I get here, what have I done to deserve this? 

I have had a reawakening, of sorts.  Something had to give.  In turn, so went my perception of what I thought I was to become; what so many others thought I was to become.  An impossibly high and narrow bar.  Even though that other way is noble, honorable, respectable, impressive even – you owe it nothing if it is not for you.  Perfection was my goal, denial my salvation.  

Working 19 hour days to prove myself to everyone but – myself.  Spreading so thin that the tiniest cracks became gaping holes.  So much caved.  The very best of me, caved. I looked so good on paper, yet was so empty inside.   I was racing towards the finish line yet still running when I got there.

There will undeniably be moments of each day where it will defeat me.  The physical me.   Oh but to me there is just so much more to me.  And so in that hell of pain and weakness, a spark will stay lit, fueling the fire.  This isn’t black and white.  This isn’t an issue of strength.  This is a disease, this is beyond even my control.  It has me whether I like it or not.  I can’t buck up and power through.  I can’t deny.  I know longer have the luxury of hiding this in order to make others appeased.  To keep them from worrying.  I just can’t give that much anymore – honestly, I used that up everything I had years ago. 

I cruise the internet looking for a cure, a reason, even.  Instead I find others likewise afflicted.  Some confused, some angry, some lost, and some already gone.  They have given up – on medicine, on the Gods of it and those who profess its power.  I realize the only relief comes from the peace inside.  The freedom to suffer, the freedom to heal. The freedom from our very lowest versus our very best.

 That I would be good if I went and stayed sick.

Perhaps my cure isn’t going to come in the form of a medical discovery, complete freedom from symptoms, perhaps my cure is simple acceptance and allowance of public suffering. How to use the word, no.  ‘No’ is my only cure available.

I’m still here. I’m good. I’m worth something.  And I deserve as much respect as someone going through a great battle.  Someone fighting a war.  Because I am.  As is everyone. ‘Be kind to everyone you meet for they are fighting a great battle.’ It may be invisible to others yet it is black as night to me.  But wait I see it.  That spark.  That drop of light in the distance.  I think I’ll go there.  I think I’ll stay there from here on out.