Limbo
It didn’t invite me, yet it welcomed me in with opened arms and before I knew it I had taken residency in it’s darken halls & quiet streets. Limbo became the ether where I would reside.
As my life was so cruelly stripped away from me I searched, endlessly for a new way to belong, for some sense of ability to forge my way in new surroundings. Seemingly dreamlike, this new existence, so different from any I’d ever known, called into question every thing I’d ever believed.
Suddenly I could look ok but be severely sick.
Out of nowhere I could loose all of my independence.
Overnight my body would fail me in every way I could imagine.
In days to come I would learn there would be no medical help.
In months that followed dreams of careers would be shattered and as the years would come and go so would that of family, love and children of my own.
My place in this world: lost.
I would loose faith in those I’d always respected and garner an inner strength I’d never have previously fathomed. Yet I’d catch a glimpse of my ghostly self in the passing mirror and stare in shock, “Is that really me?”.
Over time the beatings dealt, the blows felt from a radical lack of medical care, fighting for help, fighting welfare, bled me to my core, how can one be expected to fight for help when they are trying to fight for their life?
I remain desperately attempting to grasp on to any resemblance of self, of identity, wondering where did it go so wrong?
Who is this person I see in this picture? Face adorned in makeup, in colour, brightened, glowing, I don’t recognise myself.
On one hand is the stark, sullen eyed girl, the other one who’s face is dressed to the nines. I cannot place myself in either. In one, I find myself longing, in the other, I am shocked by my sickness.
I am reminded daily by my lack of control both over this fight and in it. Therefore I’m learning I can but exist in this limbo. In real time. After far too many years focusing on the ‘what ifs’, the longing gut wrenching future dreams lost, I realise I can only focus on the here and now, for my own sanity, for my own happiness.
So in my best moments of my best days I put on some makeup. Desperately seeking to find myself, desperately seeking Amy.
If you’d like to learn more about my illness (or one of them at least) then please check out ‘My Story With M.E‘.
You can find out more about M.E at M.E Association.
So beautifully written about something so heartbreaking.
Thank you Anna, I appreciate that ❤️