I Will Remember

It must be terribly depressing to read my blog sometimes. I must sound like the worst sad sack in the world, with everything going wrong and nothing going right. To read, day after day, about how my illness is changing my life, how it is destroying me must make it impossible to keep up with the level of distress. I want people to know that it's not always bad, it's not always misery, it's not always pain.

While I may wake up in pain this morning, I wake up with Katherine cuddling in next to me, smiling at me, asking me how I slept. You can't get much better than that. While I struggled to get into my wheelchair, onto my toilet, into my shower, I did so in lovely apartment, in a terrific city, in a country blessed beyond measure. My country actually sends someone into my home every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to make sure I am well cared for and clean.

While I may be in a wheelchair, I live in world where that is not supposed to be a real handicap, where businesses and governments are required to make it possible for me to live as full a life as anyone else. My wheelchair doesn't have to limit me, not does it have to define me. I live in a place where being in a wheelchair is not a death sentence, even when it is a life sentence.

Today I awoke to the snow falling outside, leaving an icing sugar dusting on the needles of the tree outside my window. The cars rushing by on the street below turned that snow into a squishing mulch, announcing their coming and going. The boulevard across the street from me is covered, with only the tips of the longest blades of grass poking through the thin skiff of snow.

Here I am, warm, dry, safe inside from this winter chill, a chill which will stay until April. I get to watch it all from my window. If I want, I can even go outside, and come back in when I get too cold. I have choices. I have freedom. I am fortunate. It's hard not to get depressed with this illness. It's hard to remember how lucky I am. Today, I will remember.