Learning some lessons

February 1, 2009

Not a day goes by that I don't think to myself, "How much longer can I go on like this?" I'm terrified that these dilations aren't working and I'm going to end up needing another surgery. Terrified. The whole process is so taxing. I don't know how I'd be able to handle it.

Understand when you read this that this isn't what I'm thinking all day long. It's a thought I have, mostly when I'm on the toilet or shortly thereafter. Something else has been happening to me too though, almost every day. There are these people that have been reaching out to me; people from my past, people I've just met, people from the Internet. They are reaching out and offering support and encouragement and love. It blows me away.

I've wondered why I didn't know the world was full of such goodness before I was faced with all these trials. Isn't that funny? I think it was probably because I was wrapped up in my own little independent world. I didn't need people, so I thought. I mean, it wasn't a conscious thought I had, but looking back, it definitely was an attitude that I operated under. I think I was pretty protective of my emotional world. Part of it was because I had this belief that I had to have it all together. What a farce!

So the ordeals of this past year have forced me to reach out to people and ask for help. And when I have done so, people have responded. But more than that, I've been open with people about the pain and the loss and the love that I've been experiencing, and people have responded to that too. How could I not know that? How could I not know that when you open up and show yourself, people will respond in kind. There is so much more depth to be had in relationships. It's so easy when you're in pain to shut the world out. I struggle with doing that when I'm depressed, for sure. It's so easy to believe that others just couldn't understand. But that's just not true. And the only way you will ever know, the only way I have come to know, is by opening up and putting it out there that this is what I'm feeling. I guess I'm becoming more of a risk taker than I thought I was!