today

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Today I feel so joyful I could burst. This week I was blessed with three delicious days of good health and after a couple of months of mostly tough days, and it feels like golden sun descending on a gray city. On those days where I’m not in pain, I find myself smiling most of the time. I can’t believe that for the first 17 years of my life I took all those pain-free days without so much as a smile. I just assumed that I would wake up feeling fine, and go strong all day. I rarely felt grateful that I was alive and well. I didn’t stop as I walked to the kitchen, with a huge smile on my face, feeling the joy of a body which works. I didn’t relish the sensation of walking and running and standing and talking, without a struggle. I felt my health was a right, a given, an always – definitely not an extraordinary gift.  I was frustrated if I had a cold or a stomach bug, but afterwards I forgot the temporary interruption to my health and carried on, as ungrateful as ever.

If I had never become so sick, I would not be this joyful today as I experience and appreciate health, the beauty of being alive! The simplest thing makes me feel happy – going to the supermarket on a well day without having to wear sunglasses to shield my sensitive eyes from the lights, and walking around like a ‘normal’ person, putting things in my trolley. I feel excited as I do these things, unhindered by the illness which usually holds me captive. I feel so normal, and yet I suppose most other people in the supermarket aren’t rejoicing in their ability to get the groceries. It’s the little things, the things which I never appreciated, which I now treasure.

Tomorrow is an unknown – I might have another beautiful day, or I might be mainly couch bound. So I'm going to enjoy today’s moments, today’s sunshine.

Thankyou!