In the winter of 2018, my illness was raging and using my body as a battlefield. Chronic illness warriors, you know what I’m talking about. At my weekly therapy session, I described to my therapist about how my inability to work, be busy and “normal” had shown me a new side of myself, except it wasn’t quite so new. In fact, I was getting reacquainted with the old me. The base me. The me I knew as a child and as a teen.
I Lost Myself to the Busy. I think that’s fairly normal.
Once I realized this I also quickly noticed how much I missed that quiet person. I’m an introvert. An introvert with strong opinions, who loves light but finds beauty in darkness. Having the real me back was eye-opening. Finding the essence of who I am at my core again was exhilarating and also something I found I wanted to hold close and not give up in any way again. I felt fearful that I would lose this version of me again. I didn’t realize that over the years of trying to be more of what someone else wanted I had lost so much of the most integral part of me. I missed that me a lot and I didn’t even know that was part of the problem.
That’s a lot of Sunset Boulevard, Lady
Simply put I was falling in love with my own uniqueness, my individuality and how God made me. The girl/woman who loved documentaries, true crime, and doing research on all manner of topics. The one who liked to spend purposeful time alone to heal her body and give her introverted self a break, even when it looked like I was only watching some old black and white film I discovered as a kid in my grandparents’ basement.
In those moments of being unable to go to every social event, backing out of family commitments because of sheer mental and physical exhaustion created by my illness, saying no to work projects that I would have jumped at before I found a new form of self-love, peace & confidence that I didn’t know or have before. I was a fighter before but now I felt armed to the teeth. I knew my values, worth and sense of self that can only come from walking through the fire. I now knew my limits and desires to the fullest simply because I was forcing myself to take the time and do the work to heal my body and now I was actually healing my mind and soul.
Of course, you know what happens next. I began to truly accept and love myself. Ta-Da! I felt strong and ready to face the world and its problems head-on. I felt unstoppable. I knew that if I got knocked down again with this disease I could fight it and I could fight many other things. Little did I know that ALL of this was preparing me for a much bigger fight.
