Sunshine Friday

It’s sunshine 🌞 Friday even though it’s cloudy and cool in New York today.

Late summer selfie: just me and the sunshine behind me illuminating the day.

This is balance in chronic illness: some days you have the energy and motivation to put a pretty dress and lipstick on and go for a haircut, and some other days you can’t even get out of bed. People with invisible illnesses are all around us, hiding in plain site, looking ordinary, yet feeling pain and broken parts inside nevertheless. The society that gears people to either be cured or die doesn’t always allow for this “in-between” population that struggles with daily physical symptoms (even through you may not see them). Our modern society’s drive for extreme success and tangible accomplishments has no room for just “being”, being whoever you’re are in life and in this moment. Your value is assigned according to what you can show and produce. Your weakness is deemed when you express vulnerability. Your failure is assessed when all you can do is just be.

It’s not that we don’t have hope for that miraculous cure some day as you say we should go after, or that we don’t continue looking for things that would help us improve our condition, but more so we want to be recognized and acknowledged in our vulnerability and allowed to live in whatever shape and form we can on each particular day without judgment or superficial encouragement.

This is my balance today: no filters and no makeup, just a smear of rosy lipstick, sunshine behind me, and feeling the strength in all my vulnerabilities and a strive to just BE.