Wellness Wednesday: Plea to the Lucky Ones

There are a lot of blog posts and articles out there about not letting ourselves be jealous of the lives it appears people are leading through the filter of social media. It's a problem that I am sure most of us deal with, and all of the posts and articles are exactly right--you can't compare your every day to other people's highlight reels.

But (here we go...) when you have a chronic illness, it's a bit different. You don't see people's highlight reels. You see healthy people. No, healthy people's lives aren't all sunshine and roses, but go with me here. You know that they have the capability of holding a job, taking care of their house and cleaning, keeping their family fed. And not just accomplishments in general (shoot, do healthy people even see those as accomplishments?), but every single day, day in, day out, taking a shower, getting themselves ready, driving to and from work, getting groceries, running to Starbucks, painting their nails, going out with friends, going on trips, the nitty gritty, the mundane every day things--and frequently many of those in the same day--without a second thought. That is just normal life to them.

So when I see people like that ... any healthy people ... sharing glimpses of their healthy life, just mentioning in passing all the things they did that day like it's nothing, yes, it's easy to be jealous of them and envy their ability to live and thrive physically. It's very easy to be bitter about where they are and where I am and wonder why on earth I've been robbed of the ability to even be able to be in charge of the grocery shopping and the laundry and holding a "real job." To be stuck in the kind of life where Daniel is thrilled if I've actually made dinner and done the dishes for a full work week.

But it's not the healthy people that I resent. I resent and am saddened by the possibility of any of them not realizing and appreciating how amazing, miraculous, and absolutely priceless it is that they can take a shower, get ready, drive to work, buy groceries, drive home, make dinner, do the dishes, clean, hang out with friends, go on trips...

Not to mention (but I will anyway) things like being able to get out of a car easily, not frequently being out of breath, putting away groceries without having to rest after, not having to lie down after taking a shower. Or even being able to sit in air conditioning without it causing you pain, not being anxious about going out to eat and your specially ordered food being contaminated with something that'll send you into death-pains a few hours later, not dreading fall and winter because it means more pain, or being able to always get up and fix yourself food when you need it ... I could go on and on.

And being able to do all of this without a second thought about their body cooperating, no dread of having to back out of plans, no fear that their body might freak out from sensory overload while they're out and rob them of the ability to enjoy it. The limit to their dreams being the sky and not their health.

So today I just have one wish--a plea really: if you're one of the lucky ones whose normal equals healthy, as busy as your life is, as tiring as it is running crazy every day doing 6200 things, please, please be thankful you can do those 6200 things. Please take care of yourself so that you can stay that way to the best of your ability. And please never stop being grateful for the freedom you have in health.