Grief

 I’ve been in quite the season of grief with my chronic illness. I’ve been having a harder time just accepting the chronic-ness of my illness and how it affects my life and quite frankly, my future. Now that’s a topic to unpack another day. While I’ve known all along that it’s chronic, I guess the reality and weight of that word has been a little heavier lately. I started making a video journal on my hard days and I gotta say I think it’s the grace I’ve been needing for so long.

Watching myself go. through. it. was a BIG experience for me. I started to see myself like I would see a friend. I know that sounds cheesy as heck, but it’s the only way I can explain it. For the first time I extended pure and unconditional grace to myself.

I felt for the girl in the video. i heard her pain and I felt her frustration. And for what could have been the first time, I didn’t tell myself “okay ew gross. Olivia, you’re really sounding like a complainer. You need to pull it together and remember how fortunate you are.” Nope. I didn’t do that. I saw a grieving girl who just needed to grieve her loss. Who just needed me to sit there in it with her. No judgment or condemnation, just simply sit and feel. Now when I say it is and has been powerful, y’all, I mean it has been POWERFUL. It has exposed a level of grief I didn’t know was therer. I’ve been able to feel all the things and lay it all at His feet and then do the human thing and pick it up again and then yet again, put it back where it belongs, at His feet.

I think it’s so easy to feel frustrated with yourself when you find yourself once again greiveing. It’s like, ugh come on. We’ve been here before. This isn’t new. Get over it already.

That’s the thing about chronic illnesses though. They’re chronic. You’re in a constant cycle of “yes, I can do this!” and “okay, I need a day cause this just stinks”. and that’s o.k.a.y.

I think a big part of it is just the stage of life I’m in, but the littlest things have been bringing the waves of grief on. Like in the middle of a Texas Roadhouse dance or a video of my handsome husband playing golf, or the family time that I have to leave early because I get too sick.

In these bouts of grief, I will continue to be my own friend. I will push myself to live a life full of memories and I will let myself grieve when paying the price of those memories just feels like too much.

Maybe I’ll post that first video one day so you can see the same girl I did. So you can see the uglier and raw reality of chronic illness in more than just words on a screen. But aybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll keep those couple of moments a safe space for me, myself, and I.

Ya girl is just trying to live a balanced Ecclesiastes 3:4 life lol

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to weep, ad a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance”

Oh, and to my fellow potsies, give yourself grace. Let yourself feel what you need to feel and be your own friend.