Looking forward

The other day I was walking through the mall with my mother, we'd gone on a mother-daughter-shopping-bonding-spree. As we were talking we both noticed this beautiful child, a little girl, couldnt be more than 1 year old, new to the walking business and in a cute red dress. She was running (or attempting to, probably tottering would be a better description), and looking behind her. An older boy (who I assumed was her brother) was running after her making scary faces and playing mock-catch with her. All the time she was looking behind her and I guess she was acting it, but she had a horrified look on her face and tried to run faster. And as is the case with all toddlers she tripped on her own feet and fell down. But before she hit the floor, a man caught her. I assumed the man to be her father because as she was being lifted up, a childish look of amazement came up on her face and when she saw her savior, a huge grin lifted the corners of her mouth and she let out the cutest childish giggle I'd heard in a while.

Then it hit me...most of us are just like that little girl, looking behind us at all the things that scare/hurt/bother us. We forget to look in front of us and we stumble. Some of us are lucky to have saviors that pick us up before we fall and hurt ourselves, others aren't so lucky.

You might be wondering where all that fits into feeling sick. Again, I will be speaking from my own experience, and I might be generalising but bear with me please! I told you about how sick I'd felt and how many doctors I'd seen. And yes I'd gotten over it, and now I know what's wrong, blah blah. But I have to be honest and admit, I'm always scared. They say the mind does not keep vivid memories of pain. You know you felt terrible when you had that (fit in whatever incident in your life has given you the most excurciating experience you ever had), but which if you can honestly REMEMBER what it was like, bring it back again? You can't! They say that's one way mothers can give birth again, because their memories of labor pains aren't as vivid as the real thing. And that's obviously a good thing. But sometimes it's not so good.

After my diagnosis, and after I went gluten free, a lot of my symptoms got better, notably the pain. It receded, and rarely popped in to visit. But I was still scared. A little bit of pain or feeling unwell would send me back to my bubble. I was so scared of feeling bad again that I would stress over it. And generally the stress made things worse; if I'd ignored that feeling it would have been there for maybe 10-15 mins before it went away. But stress is the food of many physical (and mental) ailments. Plus, in my head all that was the trigger for even worse things to come. And I just shut myself away.

Before I got sick, I was fairly social. I won't say I was a party animal, but i liked to hang out with my friends. Whenever a plan was in motion I was involved in it, or was following it and going out. When I got sick, I just didn't know what to tell people. The "I'm not feeling well" card had gone way beyond it's expiry date, and I didn't know what to tell the people around me. I didn't even know what was wrong! Plus, in our society, pain is an irrelevant thing, you have to rise above it and "stop being such a baby" (but more on that in another blog). I won't say that was what was said to me, but I felt like people were thinking that. I felt others thought I was craving for attention. So I just closed up, locked myself in a small sphere and only allowed a handful of people in. I declined invitations from friends to go out, I really wasn't feeling well and on the rare occassions when I was I just didn't feel upto going out. Slowly, the circle of people around me dwindled. And it is my fault, I admit it.

Now that I am better, and that I can go out and not be plagued with fatigue and pain I still haven't reconnected with the people I lost along the way. One, I was embarrassed (still am actually) that I let them go, and didn't share what was happening to me with them. Two, a part of me still fears a relapse, and I don't feel upto declining all offers I get all over again. Three, I'm still healing, both physically and emotionally. I need sometime alone to understand, be grateful, and to figure out how I'm going to go about things now. I know its been more than a month since my diagnosis but it hasn't been an uneventful one. That is something I would prefer not to share at this moment of time. This is why I hadn't blogged anything for a while.

I've been looking behind me all this time, terrified of all that had plagued me. And I tripped, I'm still on the floor actually, but I am slowly getting up and looking forward. I haven't found my savior yet, but there isn't anything in front of me that scares me, so I guess I will look forward and deal with things as they come.

There isn't much of a thought of the day. But let me tell you, looking behind makes you miss out on many good things and blessings that come your way. What I'd been missing out on? I hadn't had a seriously bad day (one which I needed to stay in bed, felt miserable in, or one in which I had to cancel plans with the friends that are around me), in more than 2 to 3 weeks now (Knocks on every wood surface in the vicinity!). And I only realized that yesterday! So look ahead, and look all the good things straight in the face and ENJOY them!!!