I survived today
When you go through prolonged periods of being predominantly housebound, the way people imagine how you spend your days ranges from the ridiculous, to the really fecking ridiculous. It has always baffled me that people seemed to think you somehow have the better deal. That you’re lucky not to work. That you’re living a life free from stress and you blissfully float through each day in your life of luxury, lording it up to the sound of daytime TV. Or they assume you are utterly morbid. That your life has no meaning. Your life is empty. You experience no joy. You have no pride. You have no passion. You have no personality left. You are simply the embodiment of an illness they’ve never tried to understand. Oh if only they knew, ay?
When I was deep in the thickets of a relapse at one point, a “friend” who was forever furious that she went to work and I didn’t, asked me as she was walking out the door “what do you even do all day? If I was you I would literally sit around and cry all day about how sad and pathetic my life is” and then proceeded to huff and puff her way out the door. She most probably would. I didn’t. I don’t. I won’t.
When you’re living with an illness, your life is riddled with challenges, but you are anything but pathetic. Each day you survive is an almighty triumph and not something that should ever be branded as a failure. Of course, you will grapple with inner frustrations and pangs of panic that your life is stuck still while the world continues to spin. But your whole world is spinning at a different speed, and in a different direction and one that most could never handle.
When days after days roll into months and maybe years, and you feel like you’ve done “nothing”. Look for the littlest things. Were you kind? That’s enough. Did you rest? You are enough. Did you breathe? That in itself is enough. Each tiny thing mounts up to something monumental. Each day you make it through, you are winning and I’m endlessly proud of you. Your day does not need to look like everyone else’s to be valid. Your day is simply yours. 💛 xXx