It is very quickly approaching the anniversay of my birth, and of Ella's birth.
Both are significant birthdays. Ella's because she will have survived her first year of life and remains the happiest baby ever, so long as you give her food every 10 minutes. Mine because I will have reached that age where "they" say life begins, and I wonder.
I'm sure some lives do begin at 40, with a newly-found acceptance of self, of freedom from the responsibilities of parenting. But mine...?
I find myself on the brink of 40 with limitations that cause me both physical and emotional pain, with trying to be a "good enough" mother to two beautiful children who deserve more than I can give them, and being wife to someone who is clearly not coping (and why would he?) with the difficulties that my condition has placed before him.
What exactly is life going to give me now that I am, give or take, at the middle of my life? Physically, for me, it seems to be all downhill from here. I resign myself to the fact that I will never be able to run with my son the way he wants me to. I will never be able to lift him up and twirl him around the way I see other parents do with their child. I feel as though I will always be on the sidelines in the lives of my children when I long to be there right in the middle of things, wrestling or bike riding or just sitting on the floor and playing a game. I want to pick up my beautiful Ella Bella Mozzarella and hold her close for more than the few minutes available to me before my back is telling me that any more will mean a week without walking.
I want to drive my own car. I want to have a whole day to myself. I want to drive this way and then on a whim drive that way and, in the words of my son, "see what I can see". I want to have a functioning brain that is not addled by the cocktail of pain management medications I must take every day. I want to not be a burden to those I love. I want to know that my condition is not permanent and that there is some hope, somewhere, of leading a normal life.
I want to know that the white matter lesions in my brain are not Multiple Sclerosis.
Focuses on teaching and promoting healthy eating behaviors through the use of rewards, self-monitoring, and goal setting. They also teach coping strategies and the different anorexia triggers so that they would avoid it. They teach recovering and coping techniques that are needed for a person so that when they are done with the program, they will survive on their own.
ReplyDeleteMay stupid white matter lesions be insipid little nothings, may you breathe in the smell of Ella Bella Mozzarella's hair in those minutes that you hold her, may you cut yourself slack for all the crap stuff you can't control, may you enjoy great lashings of birthday cake and hold your head high because you are forty and AMAZING.
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