I’m sitting here, working on my baby book, and watching Agnieska Holland’s version of The Secret Garden. Everyone should see this movie, it’s amazingly beautiful. Watching it tonight I came to a realization. In the film, there’s a young boy named Colin. He has spent his entire ten years of life lying in a bed, supposedly unable to move for the lump in his back and his frail skeleton. He never goes outside for fear of spores. Every day he laments because he’s going to die. Over the course of the film, his cousin, Mary, teaches him that perhaps he isn’t truly ill. In a life where he hasn’t even learned how to walk, he is suddenly shown how to live.
My relentlessly on-coming illnesses may suck, they may hurt, they may lead to operation after operation. But I should not fear them. You cannot be so afraid of death and pain that you forget how to live. I have spent the past week feeling miserable, sorry for myself, crying myself to sleep every night. Because of pain. There is no point in that anymore. This is my lot in life, I cannot give in and give up.