It’s hard to believe I had appendicitis over and over and over again. That I had an enormous infection that was working at paralyzing my digestion over and over again.
I came across this picture this morning from the release of “Anne” and so many thoughts came. I spent the week before laying around with what I, and everyone else thought was severe PTSD symptoms. I finally dragged myself to get up and dressed this day while still having severe abdominal pain, having dropped down to 100 pounds yet again, and having not showered for two or three days.
There was so much in this photo that I didn’t have figured out, even though it was effecting my life drastically, and I can’t help thinking, “Rachel, it was right on front of your nose! How come you didn’t see it?”
“How could I have been so blind?”
I’ve have moments I get mad at myself, I feel stupid. I was in severe pain. I could barely eat or move, and I didn’t do enough to fix it. But, the truth is that I did everything to fix it. Maybe I didn’t make an appointment with the doctor who would have found it, but I saw every doctor they told me to. Maybe I endured pain I should have gone to the emergency room for, but it was endurable. Maybe most people would have done something differently! And that will be true for everyone, in every situation.
You could have done yesterday differently, but you were just living. You could have laughed more when you didn’t know it was the last time you’d see your friend, you could have held on longer to a brother you didn’t know a virus would keep you away from all year, you could have soaked up more sunshine before it set, and let yourself look at the mountain view one more time.
But you don’t, because you’re living. You don’t want to go along in every happy moment, trying to savor it for when you loose it. That would take away every happy moment, and give it to sadness you don’t have to suffer yet.
Even if I could have done ten million things differently this year, I think I’ll be glad I didn’t. And I don’t know why yet! I haven’t been that far, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you are human and you don’t do every moment the way you would have looking back on it. Because the person looking back on today, is a different person. They couldn’t have done today like you’re doing today, only you can that, and that’s INCREDIBLE.
By Rachel Trusty 