“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
~ Langston Hughes
It is pouring with rain in the city tonight and to hear that drenching sound is to have my spirit refreshed. After the humidity of the past few weeks, it is so good to have cooler nights.
I’ve loved nights like this since I was a little girl, when I would sit with my father on the front stoop, licking an ice block and thinking there was no one cooler than my Dad. I sat out on the balcony tonight thinking about him. His 71st birthday would have been last Tuesday. I miss him on when it rains, but I’m glad of it because it means I won’t forget him.
Rain is such a refreshing thing: the ground gets a good water, the dams hopefully get their fill, and the smell that rises up from grass is a potent summer memory.
It’s also an opportunity to rest. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy and on nights (and days) like this I want to snuggle up with a book and exert no more energy than I have to, maybe spend some time fixing stuff around house neglected during my working week.
Lately my home has looked somewhat dingy, just because I’ve not had the energy to clean it often. Often when I finish up work for the day, the choices are make dinner or clean up. Dinner comes first, and I tackle the clean up in the morning when my hands have eased off.
It’s been five years since the RA was diagnosed, 2 since the fibro. I realised the other day that I don’t remember what it’s like to live without pain. I was talking to a girlfriend about it (she has lupus) and we were discussing how different life is when you live with chronic pain.
She has had to give up work to ensure she can care for her young son, and she said, ‘I don’t envy people who have to work and run a household when they have chronic health problems. My choices are simple ones because I have a wonderful, supportive husband who knows what I need even when I don’t. And my family are brilliant at being there when I need them. Not everyone has that – I’m grateful for it.’
Sitting out here in the rain is meditative, which clears a calm space in my head. The visit with my friend had initially made me a little envious that she had such a great man in her life who supported her and such a close family. It got me to thinking about how fragmented my own support system is here, and the downside of independence being that often my relationships have been rooted in the knowledge that I will move on at some point.
So the question begs, when you can’t move on from chronic illness (even though you can manage it well), how do you develop an accepting, compassionate relationship with it?
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