Surviving to Living

On June 16th,  I will have reached the ten year anniversary of the day I almost died.  I had a stroke with the only remaining side effects,  today, being  when I get really tired or stressed a little bit of a crooked lip and an eye twitch and the occasional difficulty verbalizing the words I want to say.  I usually say it feels like my words get stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth. That day marked the first point of having my world turned upside down.   I didn’t know surviving and rehabbing through that was the easy part or what was still to come in the next few years.  I was determined to get well and survive.  And I did.  

I have spent the past ten years surviving, having my world turned upside down repeatedly, losing almost everything,  grieving, regrouping, moving forward and repeat.  But what I haven’t been doing consistently until very recently is living.  

Sometimes surviving feels powerful, but a lot of the time it just feels like drowning.  It’s quiet.  You can be in a room full of people with a smile on your face and not one person will even know that you're struggling just to breathe.  It’s maintaining your composure when you want to fall to pieces.It's falling to pieces alone and pulling yourself together again to get things done. It’s questioning everyone and everything in your mind and trusting no one, not even yourself. It’s trying to figure everything out so you are prepared for what comes next and can brace for it.  It’s needing a plan to function. It’s fighting to keep your head above the water. It’s getting out of bed everyday and trying again knowing it will be hard.   It’s showing up when you’d rather stay home.  It's waiting for the right moment to come later. It’s speaking positively even when you don’t believe it, hoping somehow , it will shift your world.  It’s growing comfortable with loneliness. It’s making ten thousand mistakes over and over.  It’s falling down and getting up over and over. It’s learning to ask for help and be okay with not being okay. It’s knowing  that no matter how good the intentions, there is not one person in the whole world who can help you but yourself.

But it is also in all of that, you are moving through it to the other side where you get to actually live again and not just survive.  Slowly, I  started to trust the ground I walk on and stop expecting the worst from everyone and everything. I began discovering how to let go and trust my heart again. Living feels like freedom and joy. It's knowing that every moment is the right moment. It feels like waking up and seeing clearly again. It feels like choice, not obligation.  It feels like being comfortable in my own skin and not concerned with what anyone else thinks of me. It’s being alone and not feeling lonely but fulfilled and happy with and proud of the person I am today. It's doing things that make me feel good. It's knowing the ground will shake and I'l be okay. It’s understanding and appreciating the dozens of others fighting to survive the challenges of their lives everyday too. It’s choosing to accept the person I am and the people around me for who they are.  It’s discovering all those good things I’ve been looking for and holding on to actually are real and possible.  The tragedies simply become a history of the journey I travel but no longer define the future of that journey.     

I recently looked at my boys.  Somehow through all of this, they grew up.  Finally checking back in to life, I am only now realizing how checked out I was, just going through the motions, getting things done because it needed to get done, but not fully present in what I was doing.  I did the best with what I had and can only hope they know how much I love them and that they are why I never gave up even on the days I really really wanted to. And in this past year, I am finally in a position in which we do get to sit down for family dinners again most nights and that has been the greatest gift, to be truly and fully present in their lives and not just going through the motions.  I am most grateful for their patience and love throughout these years of survival, recognizing that they, too, have been fighting to survive right there with me. And we did, we survived.

But I have been blessed with many gifts and lessons on this journey. I’ve learned a lot of people are just surviving life but I have also learned it is way more fun to live it. I’ve learned patience with the journey but mostly what I have learned through the process of surviving is that each day brings a sunrise and  new possibilities and I get to choose if I will make the most of it or  let it pass me by until the sun sets. I've learned sometimes, I need to stop thinking so much and trying to figure everything out because I don't need to figure it all out today.  I learned to make the most of each day. I’ve learned to look up at the sky and be grateful for my life instead of asking for things to be  easier or different.  I’ve learned that counting stars is an incredible way to realize the endless scope of the blessings in my life and we never get too old to wish on stars or dream. 

But mostly I have learned that I must stop surviving if I want to live.  And I do.  I do want to live and be present in my life.  So after ten years of surviving I am turning a corner and with a grateful heart, looking forward to the many years of living that await me.