Mud

I remain in limbo and I want out.

I float here with all the babies who weren’t baptized and the lost souls who, I can only assume, were too kind for hell.

I know that all sounds rather cryptic. I don’t mean to be. I just can only explain the emotions of this half-life I am living so well in words.

I feel so very lucky and loved in so many ways and so very alone in most others. That is not to slight all those around me, it is just the nature of the beast. This is my illness. My fight. My disease. My life. I do not have a choice but to battle while everything else must continue on around me. That means without me as well.

Life is not fair. And for the most part, I have very little to complain about. My health is improving. I am slowly making my way back to all the things I did before. Or, at least, making my way through this quick sand to this new life of mine that slightly resembles the old one. As I gain more health, I see more of me and that life I once knew. It pushes me forward.

Unfortunately everyone and everything around me has changed along with me. Lives must continue forward. And we need to learn and navigate this new chapter. It’s unfamiliar territory. I don’t like it. I want all of the old territory back. All of it. I realize that can’t happen but I know that if I keep pushing I can at least get 99% of it back. That’s my goal, anyway.

In the meantime, I’m supposed to just cope with the cards I have been dealt and make that lemonade or whatever other such nonsense cliché’ allegedly will get me through this mud. This thick, sticky, mud that is heavy with guilt and pain and fear and anger and desperation and yearning for those times when my hand was held constantly and I knew it was going to be ok, simply because my hand was held.

It was that clear.

Now I am just trudging through, blinders on, tunnel vision, headed for that light at the end of that tunnel. Because I can see light. Finally.

And where there once was a crowd holding each hand, life has gone on. And on. And on. And my independence means I will take the strength they have given me over the years and use it to push me through to the end.

God I miss the entwined fingers though. It made the mud feel like crystal clear water. It made the heavy steps feel like a soft glide.

I continue to carry that feeling with me as I push.

I have no choice.

I can’t force the contact that lifts me up and carries me through. I remember when I had my first surgeries. I could have run around those hospitals. And nearly did. the healing power of a gentle touch of kindness and encouragement can sustain a person through so, so much.

it continues to sustain me. And I am nearly there.

I know everything may never been totally the same, but after I shower off this mud and run a comb through my hair, maybe, just maybe, everyone will see it’s still me.