Deep Breath, Start Fresh

The theme for Invisible Illness Week is Deep Breath, Start Fresh.  How can you take what you have learned with a chronic illness and move forward, continue to live your life?  My first thought on this:  I have to forget my past, forget the life I once had and plow ahead.  I shouldn’t dwell on how easy it used to be to do my daily duties as wife and mother.  This is the here and now, and I can’t look back.

There are so many references in leaving your past behind, just Google it and you will see.  So it MUST be the right thing to do, right?  Who could forget the scene in The Lion King between Pumbaa and Timon, when trying to convince Simba of this. 

Pumbaa:  It's like my buddy Timon always says: you got to put your behind in your past.
Timon:  No, no no. Amateur. Sit down before you hurt yourself. It's "You got to put your past behind you."

I have been struggling with this concept.   Which past do I put behind me?  The pain-free, energy-filled pre-Levaquin days, or the 14 months of recovery post-Levaquin?  The truth is I can’t forget either one.  I can’t forget the part of me that enjoyed singing, traveling with my family, being involved with my kids activities, being the “fix-it” person of our household, being a mother and a wife.  That is who I was and still am, even though these things no longer come easily.  I also cannot leave behind those I have met in this horrific journey of my adverse reaction.  Many people I initially met are still suffering, and daily I meet those newly affected.  I can’t turn my back and pretend these people have never come into my life.  Can I somehow move on, and yet still embrace a little bit of all of it?

In the Alice in Wonderland movie, the Mad Hatter complains to Alice, “You’ve lost your muchness.”  Then as he points to Alice’s heart, “In there, something is missing”.   The Mad Hatter points out to Alice that she has lost who she used to be, her true essence.  She has lost the things in her past that make her Alice.   She later has to reclaim her “muchness” to slay the Jabberwocky.  As in Alice, at the end of The Lion King, Simba is reminded by the Great Spirit, “Remember who you are!”  He realized that his past, even though gone, was instrumental in his present self.  Without this knowledge, Simba would not have been able to win back his family’s pride.

A big part of my past was singing in my church choir.  This past week I dug down deep into my soul and found a part of my “muchness”.  I went to choir practice for the first time in well over a year.  Every joint and muscle in my body hurt after that 1 ½ hours; but I will not let Levaquin take this part of my past away from me.  It is a part of who I was, and still am.  It is a part of my true essence.  After 14 months, I think I deserve to get this part of my life back.  I have decided it is time to start doing this in other parts of my life as well.  I have to win back my “family’s pride”. 

Why do we have to leave our past behind?   Aren’t we also taught that the past is who we are?  That we learn from our history?  I think the answer may be a little bit of both…remember who you really are, regain your muchness, find your true essence, but then take a deep breath and start fresh.

Thanks for reading!