Thank you, Wyanne.
This has been a rough month. The roughest, I think, in years. Between the forced name change on Facebook, the loss of all my crucial ID (including my birth certificate, which was issued in Quebec, and which is notoriously difficult to get without - you guessed it - ID), and this crud that started in my head but settled gleefully in my lungs, I have been feeling really, really low.
Also, -9 Celsius temperatures last week and so much snow that, with the lung crud, I could not keep up with the shoveling.
Also, being sick while single was a new experience that I could definitely have done without.
I have never felt so depleted in my life. I was pissed off at the universe for dumping all this on me all at once.
This was me.
And yes, I had a shitty attitude.
Yesterday, after spending the day in bed feeling awfully sorry for myself, I stumbled across a video in my Facebook feed.
Wyanne. Talking.
You might not know Wyanne, but I've been a fan of her classes and YouTube channel for years now. She was diagnosed with tongue cancer last year and had her tongue removed. She can no longer swallow (like, at all), and she takes all her nourishment through a feeding tube. And there she was, SPEAKING.
That was miracle enough to shock me out of my pity party, but then she started talking about how when you are in the middle of the storm, you have all this adrenaline to help you get through it, but once the storm passes, the adrenaline is gone...and what then?
Yes. That.
Now, I'm not comparing my break up and the subsequent life changes to tongue cancer. I'm not. I know that there is nothing about what I experienced that even compares to what Wyanne experienced. At no point was I fighting for my life.
But...
I really resonated with that feeling of having all the adrenaline I needed to support me through the changes I needed to make, and now that those changes have been made, the adrenaline is gone, and what now?
What now?
I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes wondering 'what now?' And I'm not going to lie. Sometimes the thought comes with so much despair that I end up wandering around my little rooms like Miss Haversham in Great Expectations, only instead of a tattered old wedding dress, I'm in a bathrobe and slippers, clutching Kleenex, feeling like I might go completely batshit.
But Wyanne nailed it. The answer to 'what now' is 'paint'. The answer to 'what now' is 'live'. The answer to 'what now' is 'be here. Now'.
Me, now.
Grateful.
Here. Now.
I've been instructed to take bed rest and prednisone for the next seven days for the lung crud. Let's call it an enforced vacation. I'm going to use it to count my blessings.
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