Many of us live under the specter of our previous lives. Once upon a time, I walked 60 miles in 3 days in blistering hot and soaking humidity. It seems so impossible now. I feel a twinge inside when I think about these things, like reading a well-worn passage in a favorite book. It feels familiar but it doesn’t feel like me. It is hard to believe I could ever do more than I do now. It is hard to believe that I ever felt well.
When you first get sick, your immediate goal is to feel the way you used to. But for many of us with chronic disease, that desire quickly becomes unrealistic. It takes years for many of us to get diagnosed, and by the time you are, feeling the way you used to is impossible. The medication helps but does not eliminate the symptoms. Some of the medications make you feel worse. People accept this to varying degrees. Some of us learn to live with these constrained abilities. Some of us fight for more. Some of us accept it. Some of us never do.
Some days it seems unreal, that you can lose so much and still be the same person. But that is the beauty of these things. You can keep going long after you think you can’t. Your limit moves further and further until you realize that you can do this as long as you have to. You evolve in time with your disease.
There is no going back. There is only this new life, with this sickness and the physical and emotional challenges that accompany it. You can like your life, but even if you do, it is still not your old life. It hovers, haunting you in the quiet moments.
It feels like an endless night sometimes, wrapped in all these memories.
But I still believe in the sun.
When you first get sick, your immediate goal is to feel the way you used to. But for many of us with chronic disease, that desire quickly becomes unrealistic. It takes years for many of us to get diagnosed, and by the time you are, feeling the way you used to is impossible. The medication helps but does not eliminate the symptoms. Some of the medications make you feel worse. People accept this to varying degrees. Some of us learn to live with these constrained abilities. Some of us fight for more. Some of us accept it. Some of us never do.
Some days it seems unreal, that you can lose so much and still be the same person. But that is the beauty of these things. You can keep going long after you think you can’t. Your limit moves further and further until you realize that you can do this as long as you have to. You evolve in time with your disease.
There is no going back. There is only this new life, with this sickness and the physical and emotional challenges that accompany it. You can like your life, but even if you do, it is still not your old life. It hovers, haunting you in the quiet moments.
It feels like an endless night sometimes, wrapped in all these memories.
But I still believe in the sun.
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