When you face the hurdles in life - you have the choice to overcome or quit.
My life is filled with things the typical person doesn’t experience – pain, sickness, and fatigue. Suicidal thoughts, fear, racing thoughts, mania, the list just goes on and on. Most people get up in the morning and hop out of bed, go to the bathroom, get dressed, then eat breakfast. My life is a little different because I get up, force myself out of bed in spite of the fatigue, note what parts hurt and how bad, remind myself to go to the bathroom because my bladder no longer recognizes that it is full, choose the most comfortable, but appropriate clothes that I can, then force myself to eat breakfast, knowing it might hurt.
Just in the first hour that I’m up, I struggle with more than some people might in a whole day or even week. But the truth is it is not about the battles I face – it is about overcoming those battles. That is the important part, that I overcome instead of letting things keep me down.
I’m a very visual person, so let me describe things in my own way. It is like in life, we are all faced with hurdles, like those at a track meet. Some are very small, minor events that don’t set us back at all. Others set us back majorly, they are huge, looming jumps that are terrifying and it takes all we have to get over them. Some people, when faced with these hurdles choose to sit down and cry and pout and complain about this hurdle that has the audacity to stand in your way, or you can run at it with all the strength you can muster, and maybe clear it. But what if you give it all you can and you still can’t clear the jump?
That is when you find another way around. You climb under, you knock it down, you walk around, you build a step stool, you do whatever it takes to get over that hurdle. You might need to take a break, you might need help from others, you might take 100 tries, but the fact is that you don’t give up.
The point of the matter isn’t how long it takes or what it takes, it is the fact that you overcome in the end. And that is going to be what this blog is about. Sure I may complain about the hurdles of life that these chronic illnesses hand me, but the truth is that I refuse to give in and while I may be complaining about them, I’m aiming at the same time to overcome each and everyone, one hurdle at a time.
