Yearning to Be Free

For years I had been saying my dog is 7 or 8…when in fact she turns 13 this year.  That seems to be what I have done with this illness, averaged down…when in reality it started over 12 years ago.  Sick every day not tired.  Sick day after day, week after week, year after year where they all blend together.  Tired, tired I could deal with, sick…sick takes away hopes, dreams and living in the world.  I miss the world.

This too shall pass.  Perhaps not the sick, but the hopelessness of the sick, it is the ebb and flow of this disease similar to the seasons in the desert to the visitor they are hidden but those that live here see and feel the shift.  The tiny glimmers of hope that remind you that you can do this one more moment until that moment becomes and hour and that hour becomes a day and soon you have strung together a week that you have no idea how and you get up and do it again.  For time is not your friend as you realize you lost most of your prime, but perhaps time will yield answers.

Valentines weekend.  My favorite holiday.  For 3 glorious days things lifted, was I normal healthy.  Not even close, but there was a shift where every moment wasn't just so darn difficult.  And then poof it disappeared and the days since longing for the mysterious cupid to sting it's arrow of hope feels more like a mirage in this desert than a reality.

I am trying my best and grateful for the help I have.  Yet how long can one survive in purgatory?  Think forever unfortunately.  What scares me the most is that I am better than many - but for how long?

New Colossus , Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"