It's Just Harder

Sometimes I get so entrenched in life with chronic illness I forget everyone doesn't suffer from some terrible malady or another. Don't get me wrong, I know we all have our problems, issues and drama in life. But not everyone is sick. As I listened to a friend plead despair the other day over how darn hard this is, how unfair it is, how it hurts so bad to not be understood on both a physical and emotional level, I could only nod my head in agreement and offer my shoulder. Life is just harder when chronically ill, it just is.

I find I have to get up each day and pray to God my chemicals aren't off and I'm not in pain. Which is actually quite funny considering I suffer from a central nervous system pain syndrome. Needless to say my chemicals are usually a little off, and I'm frequently in pain. But the show will go on without me, if I fade into the wallpaper and give up my fight, so I muster up my strength and try to join in every so often. I find myself bargaining my way through many setbacks and disappointments but I'm not quite sure if it's Fibro or me I am negotiating with, or what good it will even do? And quite frequently it seems if I don't rise from the ashes, adjust my expectations and decide the only person who is going to change the situation is me, I get taken down.

Is this fair? That my illnesses elicited a chain reaction of devastation in my life and I am the one who has to suck it up and work 50 times harder than the next person to simply survive? I don't think so. I also don't think fair much matters after kindergarten, for it seems to be a state of affairs not often experienced in the grown-up world. Once I got over expecting fairness I started accepting my life. That acceptance led to resistance, which I'll admit got pretty hairy at times, but ultimately led to change. A very painful metamorphosis critical to the forward progress of my life.

Thanks for joining,
Leah