Folk rocker Stephen Stills sang, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Now hold onto that ear-worm while I ramble a bit before I get to my point.
As I’m lucky enough to have found and married my soul mate (AKA the Knight in Tarnished Armour), I get to be with the one I love. But the song has a different meaning for me now.
So many of us FibroWarriors mourn the loss of our old lives. I know I still do at times. I miss being a vet – a job I loved and spent most of my life working towards. I miss having pain free days. I miss that when I got a cold or flu or injury that there was going to be an end to the discomfort. I miss my independence. Most of all I miss my energy. I still hate having to ration my “spoons”. (If you aren’t familiar with “The Spoon Theory” by Christine Miserandio, then go here to have a read.)
But my psychologist has given me a challenge – to practice gratitude. To this end she recommended that I write a gratitude journal. But she gave me some extra guidelines. I have to write three things every day that are specific to that day and not worded in the negative.
So I can’t just say I’m grateful for a roof over my head, electricity and running water – unless there’s something specific to that day, like a hail storm. And I can’t say that I’m grateful I’m not as bad as such and such.
Some days it’s easy. If I’m having a good day, then it’s much easier to see the bright side of things. But when I woke up yesterday in a mild flare, it was much more of a challenge. I sat down and did it anyway. I think I stared at that blank page for a good 10 minutes before the first thing came. It took less time for the second and by the third I found that there was actually a lot of little things that I was grateful for, despite the FibroTroll beating me with his club.
And what came out of it?
Well….
My pain stayed exactly the same. But I smiled. Just a little smile, but it was real and it made it that bit easier to cope. And I felt more motivated, I got in the bath and had a good soak in Epsom salts. I didn’t cancel my hairdresser (the lovely Anita from Ex-hair-lent comes to my house so I don’t have to go anywhere). After that, I went downstairs to cuddle my broody chicken Magrat. I’m not sure that she was grateful for that, but she probably forgave me when I dug some bugs out of the compost bin for her.
So what does all this have to do with that song?
It comes down to this. I can’t be in my old life, but I can do my best to love the life I have right now. I don’t have to love all of it. I can’t and won’t love all of it. But I can and will love some of it.
