Courage and a Reality Check

I'm sitting at the hospital at the moment, waiting. Waiting and thinking and watching someone I care about faces her fears as she, in turn, waits for surgery. And watching someone else I care about try to be brave for her as she faces the fear that the person that she loves so desperately could be taken away, after everything else that she's been through.


It's been a scary year for my family. Our lives have, once again, been tipped upside down. It hasn't been easy. They (whoever 'they' might be) don't warn you that it will be like this. It's all the little things that you don't expect, that become the new normal in your life. The fear of getting sick, at all, in case you pass it on to someone whose immune system cannot cope with it. The intensity. The constant feeling of things just below the surface, of everyone walking on the very thinnest film over a bubbling lake of unrest, where one wrong footstep can throw off the delicate balance. These things have all become normal. It feels like this year has been an endurance test, for all of us. And we're all so very tired.


Despite all of that, there are beautiful small moments. Moments of humour and love and laughter. I don't know how I would cope, how I would adjust to the idea that I was most likely going to die. Watching someone I love adjust to that idea, over the course of a the last few months, has been a hard thing to do. Watching her make peace with the idea that the surgery today could not go well was also hard. And watching my Mum adjust to the idea that she may have to live life without the woman she loves was possibly the hardest thing of all.


But at the same time, that courage is inspiring. And for me, today, a reality check. 


I've always been a survivor. I've always gritted my teeth during the bad times, pushed through and held on to the tiny bit of hope inside me that, surely, it will get better. There are times however, when I am going through my dark patches, when I wonder if that is true. Whether the fight is worth it. Whether I am worth it. Whether it would just be better to stop fighting and to slip quietly into the calm darkness of it all. 


Sitting here today, watching them, inspires me. Despite the hard times lately. Despite everything. It's worth keeping on fighting another day.