When I first got ill I waited to my discover mystery illness, I waited to get better and I waited to get back to my life. I put my life on 'hold'. I just existed and kept my face firmly turned back to the past, waiting to return. I had always had major health problems that I had overcome before, so why not now?
After a diagnosis, I wasn't much wiser because so little was known, no one could give me anything but well meant suggestions and I knew no one with a chronic illness, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue or anything similar. There was no internet or groups to ask. The doctor said it was permanent though.
I didn't believe him. I still waited through another two years of trying to recover before I realised that I wasn't going to be able to return to 'normal programming'. I finally resigned from my job. I kept hoping for recovery, but I stopped waiting for it. I had to live!
It is important to differentiate between hope and not waiting. Hope means you believe that in the future things will change or improve. Waiting means you stop living the life you have now on the dream that you can return to the past. You can't return; that's why it's called the past.
You CAN go forward. When you stop waiting and realise that today IS your life, you change your focus. You take your life off pause and starting living it. If you aren't facing the future, you aren't going anywhere.
Start creating your life! Not waiting doesn't mean you give up hopes and dreams, just the opposite! It means taking a step forward. It means saying "Yes!" instead of 'Not yet'. A life on pause is a pretty boring thing: no sound, no picture, static. Don't wait, just watching your life pass by, it's happening now!
Take it off pause and play!
I am creating a blanket in 2015 I call Just Little Things. Each day I crochet one granny square and write a story. The colours of the square represent a story or moment I want to remember or celebrate.
This is an extract from the Just Little Things Blanket:
6.3.2015 Day 65 of my #justlittlethingsblanket
Yesterday I had a medical appointment and then a haircut while Martin stocked up our supplies of tea. The orange boxes reminded me of a story so orange is for possums and green for fruit!
One night I was woken from sleep by a Ker-thump!
And then my 2 other housemates woke too. We switched on some lights and an orange furry thing sped past down the hallway. What the hell? I was teaching up north in a remote area of farms and had learnt that life was often very different here.
Someone yelled out, "It's a possum." It was indeed a big, orange, hairy possum with shifty, big buggy eyes and street smarts, um, farm smarts. We opened the big double doors at the front of the house and tried to get it to leave by walking towards it.
Our offer was declined; he turned and made for the kitchen. Now as cute as some possums look this one was not. He was big and stinky. And possums poo on things when chased. There was a bowl of fruit on the dining table he'd been eating and he wasn't going anywhere.
I grabbed a tennis racquet. House mate number one had a broom and number two was holding a hockey stick with a mean look in her eye that scared the heck out of me! We advanced with a plan. Me down the left, Broom down the right and Hockey Stick down the centre. All avenues were blocked by dishevelled women in their pyjamas, brandishing sporting or cleaning equipment in hand and ready for war.
I think the possum knew the jig was up. He turned and left the building.
And now we knew who was taking a bite out of the fruit in the fruit bowl. Hockey stick had rampaged accusingly one morning, "Look, stop taking one bite out of the fruit and putting it back in the bowl!" And now the Broom and I were vindicated. I did not poke my tongue out. I did not ask for an apology, I just turned and went to back bed. The possum was not the only crazy thing I was living with.
