It doesn't get easier. You just get stronger.

Warning: some harsh language ahead. But, yeah. Life is [insert harsh language].

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Still at MGH; been here since Monday. I just went down to the second floor to have a swallowing test; as I seem to be aspirating things when I swallow. It's not apparent from looking or feeling externally, but since I keep choking they waned me to take this test to have the X-ray to look at for comparison.

I did not sleep last night; maybe 3 ½ hours. I was up late talking with my sisters. To be frank: life is fucking hard. There’s no other way for me to describe it right now. Life is hard. God Damnit. And it’s so fucking hard in so many ways; you can’t toss a pebble without breaking glass.

So I didn’t sleep well, even after we decided to all go to sleep at 4am. I miss my sisters, I love them so much and it hurts me to think of all the ways that life breaks a person down to the bare minimum of humanity. It hurts me so much.

And I’m so tired of not being able to properly cry I could just scream until I die. My eyes don’t produce tears (and the same for my mouth/saliva…which is one component making swallowing infinitely more difficult) and I haven’t cried tears in over three years. I forget what it feels like. But I miss it all the same. When I cry, my face contorts and my body hurts- I often get headaches from the tension and lack of release. But there are no tears.

So I’ve been (not) crying most of the morning, if I’m honest.

But when I went down to take this disgusting swallowing test, (I get so much anxiety from having to put foreign objects into my body; barium isn’t “absorbable” by the body, but that really doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m still swallowing a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. That’s the truth. I don’t want it.)--

But when I got down to the waiting room before the test, this cute technician came through the room I was in; laying on my stretcher, looking a mess. He smiled at me. And then he turned around to leave and I read the back of his shirt:

It doesn’t get easier.

You just get stronger.

It washed over me like a tidal wave. I felt everything at once. I wept, tearlessly. My heart broke. My soul ached like it was leaving my body for dead.

It doesn’t get easier. You just get stronger.

That statement drowned me, as I'm sitting lifelessly on the stupid stretcher covered by a thin blanket. I wanted to believe it. I do believe it. But it’s so hard to. I don’t feel like I’m getting stronger. It’s the opposite. Everything feels like it's getting harder. I feel like my body and soul are just giving up, slowly letting go and letting go and letting go after trying to hold on for so fucking long. It’s just so hard. I want to believe I am getting stronger. That I can conquer all this shit. All the physical failures of my body; rise above. All the weight of my psyche; ascend like a goddamn phoenix. Own all this. Own it all, claim it as my life, shitty as it is, and just rise. Wake up, emerge, rebel. Survive. Be better on the other side. Stronger, deeper, richer, wiser.

But the truth is I’m tired. I feel more often than not that I’m just done with all of this. Finished feeling, being, existing like this any more. I feel like I can’t do it any more. My body withers away, over and over before my tearless crying eyes. I watch as my mind plays devil games. I feel helpless against all of it. My auto-immune disease is mysterious and unfamiliar; no one has answers. And my mind is along for this villainous cycle; riding the roller coaster from Hell through all the zero-G free falls and it feel like there is no end.

But.

It doesn’t get easier. You just get stronger.

Makes me cry. and I can’t help but admit it’s because I believe this little anecdote. I want to believe it. That human beings are fucking phoenixes. We rise from the burnt ashes of our lives over and over again. I’ve seen it so many times; my heroes, these incredible spiritual masters who live through unimaginable horrors and emerge on the other side: stronger, deeper, richer, wiser. And I want to believe that for myself. I have this sneaking suspicion that hope is still out there. And it makes me weep.

Life is hard. It’s so fucking hard. There is so much loss. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing but loss. Loss of faith, loss of childhood, loss of innocence, loss of life. Heavy things we have to carry forever. Poverty, starvation, grief, disease, racism, despair, hatred, the weight of the world. How can a person bear it?

I don’t know. And yet we do, somehow.

I keep thinking, reminding myself: be the superhero you want to see in the world. Be that person who rises from the ashes and spreads her wings like a fucking Queen. Be that wisdom, strength, power and resilience. Embody faith, trust, hope, love. And the greatest of these? Love? Love for yourself? Love for the world? Love that conquers all the darkness that drowns the world over an over?

It doesn’t get easier. It really doesn’t.

But maybe we can get stronger. Maybe I can be stronger. Strength in weakness; the ultimate paradox. The reason why the story of Jesus and a God who embodied every pain imaginable makes me weep. Because it was for love. It is for love. There is profound strength to be found. Even in weakness. I see it, over and over in people I love and admire and hold in the highest regard. Now I just need to be able to see it in myself.

 This is terror. This is water. This is beauty. This is life.

Operation GSD

Today I started physical therapy again. It’s been far too long, and my body has degraded again down to the functional mechanics of an 85 y/o. This year has been discouraging for so many reasons, some of which I am not ready to talk about yet. In time, I will, but it’s not time yet. Suffice it to say that physical ailments and mental health are very closely connected and affect each other greatly. And I still feel like the fixing needed to get my body back is so extreme it feels impossible. Pneumonia really knocked it out of me. I can’t reach my arms up to get a plate off the shelf. The idea of walking a few blocks sounds exhausting to even try. I get mad when I realize I left my phone upstairs and have to retrieve it when I’m already running late and I can’t just jaunt up the stairs.

I am apprehensive. I have hated this body I’m trapped in; it’s been a constant uphill battle that never seems to cease and desist, or even plateau. I’d take a plateau, honestly. But nope, pneumonia and seasonal depression etc. etc. have set me back to square one. Do not pass go, do not collect 100 dollars.

But I’m starting small. Very small. As in, take a deep breath, right now. Do it. Just pause everything, and do it. Done? No? Do it. Close your eyes and do it.

Okay good. We default to exist in such a small amount of breathing space. But there is something cleaning, refreshing, manually calming, that ‘turning the corner’ feeling that happens in that brief moment when you allow yourself to do nothing else but take a deep breath.

So, I’m starting there. Again. And I don’t know how many more times I will start again. But I can. Even if I’m faking it until I actually believe I can.

My life path has been divergent, to put it in one word. And I do struggle with feeling disappointed in myself, and generally not feeling like I exist at all or for any real purpose. Depression is an unruly animal. But I’m starting again. #OperationGSD. aka, Operation Get Shit Done. Whatever it takes. Here we go. Again. Goals, I’m coming for you. #GSD!

I am learning so much about myself and why and how I work (and don't work). I am trying to take every bit of knowledge, every insight, every critique, every hope and dream, every disappointment; and turn it into something beautiful. That's what this means to me. It's not easy. But I hear my Self say: Take a deep breath, right now. Now, get shit done.