Hard Won Lessons. #1

Sometimes I wish life were simpler. Not this long haul journey that I’m on.

I wish I hadn’t had that surgery. I wish I hadn’t thrown a blood clot. I wish that my old functional brainstem were just that. Old and functional. But I played the odds (they were very good) and had the surgery. And I lost. I became the one in a hundred or the one in a thousand or ten thousand, who knows? I became the one.

It’s taken me all of my life to get here. To this place. And what it has to teach me.

The lessons I’m learning are hard won.

I don’t want to waste them. I don’t want to ignore them. Perhaps they have something to speak into your life, too.

Hard Lesson. Number One.

“Yes. And.”

YES, I am thankful for a lot AND my surgery didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.

YES, I am grateful. AND my life right now is overwhelming.

Yes, I have memories and photos of wonderful trips. And, traveling is beyond my ability right now.

I am learning to live here. Here in the Yes. And.

Life has never been all yes. All glamor. All good. Why is it that we are taught we must choose between things? Why are we so prone to hold only one emotion or reality in our hand and not more?

It takes some of the pressure off to live this way.

I don’t have to choose. I don’t have to pretend. Or ignore. Or push away half of my experiences. As complex human beings, we can learn to embrace more than one feeling at a time.

Yes, Life is good. And every day is more than challenging.

Yes, I love these quiet days. And, I want more than this in my future.

Yes.

And.

As Kate Bowler says.

“The space of both (Yes. And.) is where the real work of life is found. Where it takes courage to live. Where grief can strip us to the studs and life remakes us once again.”

For eight months I’ve been waking up with nausea and vertigo, unable to walk a straight line, unable to drive or travel.

But these past eight months I have also been learning and adapting. Pressed into a cocoon of change.

Like a caterpillar, in a dark cramped space, waiting. It’s uncomfortable. It’s boring. It’s scary. I don’t know what I’ll come out of this looking like. I don’t know what my abilities will be or won’t be.

I wait in the squished dark.

The metaphor breaks down here.

I’m not just waiting and hanging there. Unable to participate. I’m doing all the therapy, yoga, stretching, balance activities, eye and vertigo exercises. I’m not a lazy day caterpillar. I can do my work and participate in my recovery, but like the caterpillar, I have no control. No control over how well I will or will not respond. No knowledge of what lies ahead.

As Matt Haig said in The Comfort Book, writing about caterpillars:

“We fall apart to become new.

We go through the dark to fly in the sun.”

I’m hoping so. I’m hoping the cocoon will dry and shrivel and that a butterfly with wet wild wings will emerge. I hope to fly.

But even if this dream doesn’t come true. Even if a steady gait, or driving or travel are never a part of my life again. Still I will live here. In the Yes. And.

YES. AND.

YES. Today is better than yesterday. AND I miss my old life.

Yes. I am carrying on with courage. AND I am afraid.

Thanks for reading!

Love always,

Jill