I haven’t written here in a while. I just stopped wanting to write about my health because it became something that was too big for me to put into words. The constant fear that I kept at bay through a careful maintenance of “fight or flight” mode slowly started to collapse around me. I also stopped wanting to live in that space where I was consumed by how I was feeling. As a person with chronic conditions, I will always have to worry about that, so I wanted to find a way to let it float in the background, to hide it behind a smile so that I could focus on the more fun and fulfilling parts of life. I also stopped writing because as my health began to stabilize, all the anxieties I had been stifling for years came out full force. I was no longer afraid of dying. I was terrified of living, and of everyone around me dying.

It was, as most emotional and physical transitions are, quite challenging. Coming down from the adrenaline that courses through your veins as you shore yourself up for surgery after surgery is hard. My anxiety took control of me for months as I threw myself back into life with full force. I’d missed so many years that I felt I had to compensate by working faster and harder and more efficiently. Thus, the lion share of the last few years of achievement have been taking place over several months rather than years. I would like to say I have conquered my fears and anxieties, but I haven’t. Indeed, the PTSD and anxiety that I manage are not easy to contend with and will likely linger into the background like all my other physical, medical ailments. And that is okay, I can live with those, because, I get to live. 

Transitions, even the most beautiful ones, can ignite fear in us. Fear is not the enemy though, it doesn’t need to be vanquished. Instead, I sit with my fear, soothing it, calming it, and feeling it in my heart beat, as I go out into the world, smiling big, pain and anxiety only as quiet background noise, and I begin to triumph and celebrate my life, and all our lives.