Getting sick is not the end of your life. It's the end of one of your lives. (Part Two)
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JUN6
Getting sick is not the end of your life. It's the end of one of your lives. (Part Two)
Cabin trip with the sisterlet and her furbeast. I was left in astronomical pain after this trip, but only for a day, because my little sis literally did EVERYTHING except drive.
I didn’t just let go of my old life all at once. If anything, I clung to each piece as it was individually ripped through my sharp little fingernails.
If I couldn’t hike, I’d still go to the woods for a waddle. The preparation and the drive became a bigger part of the experience, one I hadn’t really noticed before. The songs and the scenery en route felt bigger. On my ten-minute crawl down the trail (yes I was passed by a granny. In loafers.) I smelled the forest. I saw little bugs and flowers and plants I’d never seen before. And I sat in sunny places, soaking up views I’d never bothered to pay more than passing glances to before.
(To be honest, this was mixed in with a TON of resentment. But, it was something.)
As I got worse, trails (begrudgingly and heartbreakingly) turned to parks and alleys. In my shrinking world, my sense of appreciation and wonder grew. YES, I wanted to kill everyone breezing all able-bodied past. YES, I missed epic routes. YES, I sat out there, looked at the pretty view, and asked a God I didn’t really believe in and was quickly starting to resent, “what the ACTUAL fuck, dude?”
But, more and more, I became simply grateful to be out at all. I didn’t need the epic adventure…as much.
Saw things I never noticed before in my mad stomp onward.
When I first started my trail-sits, it felt stupid to ask anyone on these mini golf adventures. I was embarrassed I couldn’t do the same things as my friends. I knew there was no way they’d understand. I thought I’d get better and back into the swing, so why bother dragging people on my pathetic healing journey?
It was lonely.
So I found solidarity in patient groups online, where we were all crippled equally. Somehow, connecting at all gave me the courage to ask people for the most normal activity I could think of: grabbing a coffee. Eye contact. No distractions. Woof.
But over time, coffee got easier. And so did the connections. Glacially, I stopped hiding my condition and pretending less to be normal. And people…well, no one was overtly mean or ostracizing. Not everyone had the magic words and some people said some truly boobish things, but they all meant well. And for the most part, people understood more than I expected.
Senior citizen funfests like touring an iris farm are usually safe bets for excitement.
But if I wanted to be able to do anything with anyone, I simultaneously HAD to ask for more help and draw more lines. In my old life, I was fiercely independent…yet completely unable to set a boundary gracefully. It never occurred to me to shut down a rambly one-sided “conversation”, refuse an insane favor, or ask anyone to be inconvenienced in any way.
I knew I’d been forced into turning a corner when I bumped into a buff ex-boyfriend at the Co-op and immediately handed him both my heavy grocery bags with a simple, “would you help me carry these?” No mincing, no apologies, no hesitation. I learned, slowly, that it’s pretty effing minimal to ask to be dropped off at the door or just warn people ahead you won’t be drinking. No one’s put out. No one really gives a hoot.
New hobby: late nights at the flower farm with one of my dearests.
I also learned most of my people WANT to help. As I shared more about my condition, friends automatically grabbed the heavy stuff for me and offered drives instead of walks. They weren’t inconvenienced. If anything, it made them feel good to chip away at some small part of my burden. In a way, I began to feel like I’d been depriving them of getting to feel like the good, big-hearted people they were.
All this called for a vulnerability I’d railed against when I was younger. I thought showing weakness or negativity (or even confidence and positivity in the “wrong” scenario) would make people like me less.
Being real only made them connect with me more (I know, duh, but Brene Brown hadn’t quite caught on yet). And being more real made me connect with myself more. I felt comfier in my own skin, whether I was alone or out and about. When I bumped into people, I no longer worried what they thought of me. I just enjoyed the interaction—and if I didn’t, I exited. Fast.
Because in all this, I had to get ruthless about what did and didn’t serve me, no matter how much I might have liked it. My old life ended, and that meant the end of a lot of things I really loved. But it also meant the end of anything-less-than-rock-solid relationships, obligations that were wearing me out, low-paid workaholism, and people-pleasing.
Friends eating the foods I could eat that month with me.
I still crave the trails, the feeling of snow sliding under my feet, cooking anything other than the two routine safe meals I make daily. I crave throwing everything in the car, planning a trip with no regards for accessibility, or just doing literally anything without pain looming and lurking and darkening the edges the whole time. I crave intense late-night work sessions on projects I love.
I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop wanting to be a functional human, because nothing about being left in a sick and suffering condition is okay. I still have so many moments where it feels torturous and unfair. Where resisting every healthy impulse my body has (to run! to climb! to go! to eat!) tires me on a level I’ll never convey.
Still, I crave those old-life trappings less intensely and less often. I don’t think about them with nonstop longing and angst. Just occasional longing and angst.
In an ideal world, I’d learn all these great lessons AND regain my function and thus would ski off into the sunset as the fully-realized uber-human that I’m pretty sure I would be.
My best friend from high school. I’m so exhausted and brain fogged here. And had a good time anyway.
In another world, I might have just kept going in the same vein. Fiercely independent. Chasing the highs of travel and mountains. Never really settling into my self and my community like a comfy old Dansko. There are a fair number of a certain brand of eversingle, sorta lost forty- and fifty- something ultrafit outdoorspeople here. Their half-empty hearts show on their spandex sleeves like mine once did.
In the world I have, I’ve made friends that I trust, who like me for me. I feel connected and supported in the community where I live. I can find a wild world in the alleys and little parks where I take tiny strolls, and it fills my heart up without needing to be an escape. The afternoons I can sit across from a dear friend and look into their eyes feel sacred, not scary. I work way less, and charge way more. I value my time intensely.
I can’t do the things I love most. So I do the things I love second-most. I’ve gotten into flower arranging and audiobooks and growing sprouts and talking people into going to sit-downy things like lectures and plays or even—yes—just perching outside somewhere pretty with a BYO tea.
It’s not all Stars Hollow. I still hurt and suffer and spend way too much time and aggravation chasing this or that medical fuckfest. I want to take a bite out of life so badly. But I have to subsist on nibbles. I’m still scared sometimes of what the future holds.
I hate this shit.
But not like I used to be. And more importantly, I don’t actively dread the present. The depression that dodged me from a too young age has lifted into a comfy acceptance and optimism (with understandable bursts of anxiety and anger that I refuse to feel bad about).
Against all odds and reason, I am enjoying the life I have now. A life of severe pain, medical symptoms galore, and a tiny energy thimble. And yet, I am mentally healthier than when my body was healthier, living a life of equal parts adventure and angst.
Speaking of the end of life, I totally murdered these sprouts on accident. Whoops.
Make no mistake: this second-choice life is not the life I want.
But (just like anyone would with a box-of-red-flags boyfriend) I relentlessly look for reasons to love it anyway.
Until it too fucks off for good. Hopefully, into a yet another new one.
