I Wish
I hope you never have a list of wishes as long as mine.
This is not about the ways I’m grateful for this chronic illness. This is not about the ways chronic disease has challenged me to survive, rise, transform, and drag myself out of hell to become a better version of the person I used to be. This is not about silver linings and blessings.
It’s about the wishes still buried deep in the darkest shadows of me. The wishes born out of having the freedom to CHOOSE taken from me when I lost MY HEALTH.
I wish chronic disease hadn’t robbed me of my youth. I wish it hadn’t stolen any chance of being carefree.
I wish I could step into the middle of a club, crowded by strangers, music blasting, doing whatever I wanted without having to think about the migraines, vomiting, spasms, excruciating pain, and weeks or months of being bedbound that are waiting for me. Not because I ever liked clubbing, but because I wish the choice was mine.
I wish I could step out my door, dressed in as little clothing as I want, without having to anticipate all the ways my body temperature will fluctuate, how getting too cold will make me seize up and crash, how I need extra clothing to act as padding between my body and surfaces to lessen the shock of pain from making contact.
I wish I could jump on the sky train to downtown anytime I wanted, head to the beach, go shopping, sit in a coffee shop, and just have a day out in the sun wandering.
I wish I could get behind the wheel and drive up the coast and not have to fear losing sensation in my legs or burning with pain or the way the exertion will make me crash and burn.
I wish I could talk for as long as I want. Cry as hard as I need. Dance as fast as I feel. Walk and run as far as the hiking trails go.
I wish I could live with my husband. I wish I could have babies if I wanted, without the words of the doctor on my mind telling me all the ways pregnancy and child-rearing would break me and be inadvisable.
I wish there wasn’t always this dark presence looming in me, demanding everything of me, stretching me, draining me, requiring a million mental calculations for every action I take, ready to punish me at any time, without warning.
I wish I were free.