When Chronic Illness Leaves Me Dreaming of Another Life

I want to live another life. One where pain doesn’t exist, where there are no rainy days, where nothing is work and we eat cake for breakfast.

I want to feel another life. One where time is celebrated and not stolen from me, where there are more smiles for good news than tears for bad, one where everything is sweet and slow like a perfect first kiss.

I want to be able to live my life. A life where I’m not sick, I’m not going bald, I’m not in pain or tired all the time. My life. When I could make plans and go out and not worry about physically paying for it for days.

I want to live my life in a place where I don’t feel the tears that want to be shed. I want it so badly, even these words are just not enough. No matter how beautifully I describe it, it could never be enough to describe the beautiful life I feel like I should be living.

I’m not able to live that life quite yet but feel like I am taking steps to get there. Today, the pain is excruciating and I’m waiting for my medicine to kick in so the stabbing pains turn to dull throbs. So I can focus, and work, and still try to be my best.

I will say losing your hair is hard. Not the hardest thing I’ve been through in my life but hard enough. It isn’t the vanity anymore, I’ve sort of gotten beyond that. It’s what my hair falling out actually means. It means all those things I want up there are still unattainable. They are still aspirations, when all I’m asking for is happiness and a pain-free life. Something most people get to live. Maybe it’s the jealousy that’s holding me back, the feeling of standing on the outside of what I want looking in – banging on the glass to just let me in.

I am trying to learn to stop begging for something I can’t have right now. No matter what I seem to do. I am trying to learn that even with the pain, my life is good. I deserve the space I am in, and happiness might be beyond this battle because right now I can’t seem to find the place of happiness within it.

Who could, to be honest?

I was talking to my sister the other day, and I mentioned something my therapist sent to me. People want to say the things they think will help, and that’s not a bad thing. But sometimes we don’t need help out of the hole, we need someone to climb in with us and help us through. It’s a hard concept to understand I guess, but no one can make this better but me. I understand that now. I need to learn things to help me find joy even when my body is fighting the very thought of it.

Another life – one where there is no thought of anything unhappy that has happened since my diagnosis. A life where there is no constant wonder of when.