good health

As I'm in donation limbo there's not much kidney talk to talk about.

Which is leaving room to think about health, or lack of.

I've always lived in absolute fear of medical disaster. Could be because I've lived with serious illness down the hall my entire life and while it wasn't dinner conversation, it was always there. There was my brother and his cancer. My sister had a stroke. My father was/is an oncologist. What can go wrong wasn't an abstract, it was every day reality.

I can't begin to imagine how my parents dealt with two children who were so seriously ill. I suppose we all have the experiences in life that force us to let go, to somehow, however impossible, come to grips with situations we pray we never have to live through.

I excel at compartmentalizing. At packing up little boxes of situations and emotions, then shoving them way back in a closet I choose to not open unless I have to. I find that yoga is a necessity. To be present, to move, to breathe makes such a difference when shutting down, curling up and hiding were how I existed for so long.

To hold onto life as a far bigger picture than just me. I could spend every moment of this lifetime worrying about what ifs, re-experiencing what's happened. The little universe of which I am the sun, is pretty damn powerful.

But, there's so much more.

This kidney journey is allowing me a different perspective. To acknowledge that no matter how terrified I am that something's wrong with me, I know I'm ok. To be more grateful than I've ever been for my life, my family, all that we've built together. To accept, at least more than usual, that I don't control anything, no matter how much I want to. And in that, to live in what is, not what was or what might be.