I think that in life, especially life with a chronic illness, the future is unsure and unpredictable. We hold on to the big moments because they stand out, but it’s not until we’ve been on the mental border of life and death that we start to appreciate life as it is.
Making the decision to get a lung transplant has made me admit a couple of things:
1) That being that end stage cystic fibrosis is a reality; it’s not just some far off thing that could happen but isn’t happening. It isn’t the type of thing you can really know until you are kind of close to it.
2) I’m not invincible. Even though the odds are mostly in my favor, there could be a premature ending to my story.
Lesson learned!
I’m living for the present and the future. I’m appreciating the life I have now, because in a few years I will most likely be living a completely different one. And I’m learning the importance and significance of the little things in life I tended to overlook before.
I have become a connoisseur of these small things; these moments. I have found they add to your happiness without defining it. Like having fits of laughter with my family, chasing my nephew around the house, snuggling up to a movie with my boyfriend, or just driving around on a nice day.
Call me a sap, but making the decision to get a lung transplant has left me with the feeling that life, and EVERYTHING in it, is short lived and should be cherished. When I say short lived I just mean that time is fleeting, and things are always changing. I have found myself going through these moments in slow motion, and locking them up. I am truly experiencing them; sucking every ounce of them up so I can retain the joy they bring me and use it later.
I think it’s important for us to remember the way life was, and is. Maybe I sound like a broken record, but remembering everything you’ve done so far (all the fun, all the struggles, the adventures, time spent with family and friends, time being sick, and time being well) gives you the motivation and the strength to make it to the future. Remembering simple times, and simple pleasures, and possibly even the boredom that sometimes accompanies them, makes the daily minutia of life a little more bearable. It reminds us that even when we’re not experiencing light or dark times, there is still life in us.
Living with a chronic illness is a series of highs, lows and coasting, but there are small things in every day, and in every breath that could be cherished and held dear, and that’s what I’m doing.
How about you?
Love,
Phee
No comments:
Post a Comment