Over My Head

It's that drowning feeling when so many things are coming at your immuno-compromised physical and mental being that you want to shut down, but you don't. You rest. We rest.

Lupus, fibromyalgia, depression, medication side effects, headaches, sore throats, joint pain and brain fog are common among the chronically ill. Doesn't mean we like it. Add cancers, PTSD and new traumatic events and we need to be thrown a lifeline.

I'm grateful that each day someone or something tosses me that lifeline.

Sometimes, it's just a call from a friend or an email or even a Facebook post that can lift me up and make me feel that my head is above water. Or a snuggle from my perceptive dog or a good piece of dark chocolate. Like a duck, my legs are running fast underneath but I am breathing overhead. I look so deceptively calm and peaceful.

As the leaves change their color due to the shortening of days and the coming of winter, I can't help but think of it as a time of shedding. I've had a tremendous loss (my brother) and this was his favorite time of year, particularly in New York's Hudson Valley. I have to shed my dreams of crunching through the leaves with him; of leaf peeping right outside our front doors. I have to shed the protective cloak of my big brother. I have to shed the illusion that he will be back.

When  a life force as strong as my brother's is snuffed out, it's hard to understand life at all. This seems to be my only focus these days as I meander through time, not really present but here nonetheless.