In the Chronic Cave
Being sick — the kind of sick with unknown diagnosis or chronic prognosis— is not enviable or luxurious. It requires much preparation.
It’s a grind of ups and downs and flares. It’s surfing choppy water — often going under. I’ve had good days, good years even, and yet the darkness returns. I call it the cave.
Befriending the Chronic Cave
The sick days have carved out a cave in me —and maybe in you, too?— a deep, hidden place that ever recedes but always welcomes. I can only tell I’m returning by the fade of color, the brassiness of sound, the dimming of thoughts.
Once I’m there, there is nothing.
The pain and the distanced self are the warning walls for me. Push no further. For all that’s left on those days, or hours, is being itself.
My will alone exists. And with its power, I remember that my existence matters, even if there is no proof of my having passed the time.
I grip my fundamental beliefs: there is a universe that brought me forth, and it is still around me. There is a Heart of that Universe that knows us all. This moment — or day or week or month or year — will pass. I matter, despite being so very small, so very singular, so very removed from the ties that make us citizens and creators and friends.
