The potted gardenia I bought last week has become my closest companion these days. If I leave it by the window and fall asleep, its scent rides the breeze all night and circles back to my nose. The smell is so faint and gentle that even half-asleep I feel my face soften. To think a single fragrance could ease my heart like this. Ever since I fell ill, these tiny things keep landing on me with surprising weight.
Yesterday I handed in my resignation at work. On the walk back my shoulders felt lighter, yet oddly, once it was done, going in to work only became harder to stomach. The fact that more than a month still remains feels heavier than ever. It was a job I'd picked back up after twelve years, and the time spent jostling around with the children was genuinely fun. But the fatigue that comes from people — there was simply nothing to be done. There were eyes that disapproved of me for no reason, which honestly struck me as a little absurd. Day after day I felt that neither my body nor my heart was what it used to be. In my healthy years I'd have just stuck it out in silence. Not now. I know this is the time to look after myself more. I'd like to rest a while and just get safely through my August checkup.
Living smoothly, without sharp corners, turns out to be no easy thing. It's all I can manage to keep myself together, so walking in step with another person — what a load that is. People who haven't yet been sick mostly don't see why it's so hard. And that's fair enough. I was the same once.
My days lately are all in a muddle. The routine I set keeps slipping, and there are plenty of days when I can't sort out my own head. Then it occurred to me: how many people in this world really live every single day flawlessly squared away? Thinking of it like that, my heart lightened a little.
A few days ago I was sitting on a park bench when a sudden shower caught me. That moment, with the smell of earth and rain filling my nose, felt strangely happy. Everyone else crowded under the eaves to escape it, but it had been ages since I'd felt rain this close, right up against my face. As it began to let up I headed down toward the stream, where a family of ducks was waddling in a row along the walking path rather than the water itself. They seemed to know the swollen current was too much for their little bodies. They were so endearing I stood and watched a good while. It's not that I dodge everything I can't handle, but for now, at least, stepping quietly around it felt like the better choice.
Looking back, at the office I think I only ever tried to come across as a good person to everyone else. When the one I should have been caring for was me. For the month that's left, I want to finish by being a kind person to myself. Because I am someone who matters. My two children, once in elementary school, are grown now, past twenty, and these days it's the reverse — they comfort me and cheer me on. That one feeling is what carries me through another day.
To everyone in the middle of treatment — I truly hope a day comes when you can pull up that whole chapter like an old tale and tell it with a smile. Looking back, time really does flow on without snagging on a single thing. * This is just one person's lived experience and feelings. For any decision about treatment or your condition, please talk it over with your own doctor first.