Serenity

I am trying to find peace.  Peace of mind, peace of heart, peace in my body that betrays.  I am trying to find and give peace to my relationships to those that own my heart and those of strangers.  I am trying to find a way to live in a world that I know I have it so much better than so many yet it is not enough, and not feel selfish in wanting more.  I am trying to create my own path in this life that I can look back on and be proud when it concludes.  I am trying to find a way to own that truth and be strong in my truth and do the best I can with what is in front of me.  I am fighting to be better than I thought I could be.  I am trying to find that sweet spot between cloaking myself in a protective 'rainbow of light' while  being vulnerable and raw to the world as I experience it every day.  I am trying to do with my life what everyone else is trying to do...find peace.

He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monopoly...

I felt like miraculously Saturday and Sunday I was blessed with the "Get out of Jail Free" card.  I flew from Phoenix arriving in Milwaukee at midnight to surprise my best friend who had her third baby on Tuesday.  The bundle of preciousness was home from the hospital on Valentine's Day, and I got to see her at less than a week old.  So instead of "talking" because I am frankly too tired to form decent sentences, thought it best to show a visual of those two days...none of this would have been possible a year ago.  But that get out of free is not forever, there is always a wrong roll of the dice that puts you back.  Despite the emotionally meltdown of the intense fatigue, body aches, foggy head that arrived on Monday...I picked myself up and relished in the fact that for two days, while they were not with out speed bumps or filled with perfection, I felt normal and it was extraordinary.

Another Flight

Baby Holly 4 days old

Kate, Holly's big sister's basketball game
Not the whole game..the 6 second running through the dome!

4 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds...

My neice's tennis lesson

This is a "normal" weekend for my friends and family, one I often just hear about or attend with such effort "I" am not really even present, just a body showing up trying to make it until the end.  These every day events make up moments, and these moments make up a beautiful life...two days...the normal being anything but normal.

Love

My favorite day of the year.  For me it's always been a day of hope.  

As a friend of mine said, a "day celebrating love, who could argue?" 

Not me!  xo xo HD

Humility is Strength

Beautiful Back Home...It's a long and winding road...

Asking and needing help is a humbling experience.  My doctor once said to me you are the most competent sick person I know...and as I read blogs and articles of others with this illness it is the great irony; extremely competent successful people stuck in a body that obeys no rules, follows no logical path and has you guessing at every turn.  Unpredictable.  I need predictable to feel safe.  But more than anything I want to be happy and strong.  And if I can't obtain strength physically, I need to work harder finding mental strength, which is difficult with an illness that often makes my pretty smart brain have difficulty reading a complex novel...thus I ended up reading Fifty Shades of Boring.  No disrespect E.L. James, but you are smarter than your books.  But you are smarter than all for figuring out how to sell books.  But I digress, the point is I spend a lot of time beating myself up for this illness and am I doing the right thing, the right treatments, and my mind can go off into a million tangents of possible solutions.  The thing is you can't look at a chronic illness day by day or you will go crazy.  I need to start looking at the totality of the illness.  And these are the facts...

1. Three years ago I barely got out of bed.
2. Two years ago I started treatments that only included hydro-therpy because I was too sick to handle anything else.
3. Last year I committed to much longer time frame in Phoenix and when I came home I played tennis
4. This year I am in Phoenix mostly by myself, driving myself to appointments when I can, not giving a damn how many veins are poked, blood is taken, stronger...I am stronger...despite Saturday not being able to move..that was Saturday.

So like all of us there are times to beat ourselves up for not doing our best and times to look at our lives in a totality and decide, no I have made progress and instead pick ourselves up.  And if we can't pick ourselves up, humbly ask for help.  You will be surprised what happens when you begin to reach out and say I can't do this alone, I need your help, I need your love, I need your shoulders.  People will surprise you and you will begin to surprise yourself.