The Best Way I Know How: An Update

Hi everyone,

I have never experienced such prolonged euphoria like I have these past few months. Not only do I wake from a night's sleep feeling thoroughly rested, but I also have so much energy that I'm pretty sure I could bottle and sell it. I would surely call it, "Anna's Arsenal of Ass-Kicking Attitude." Unfortunately, it would be difficult to sell a bottle of air, so I guess I will just have to settle for these words or, if you see me in person, the "smile that covers my entire face."

Since I went into remission on June 7, I have run a 5K (in 32:21!); visited St. Andrew's Abbey again; explored Seattle through food, stairs and the outdoors; signed up for a museum membership; furnished and colored my apartment; added a few writing projects to my plate; and, to satisfy all those romantics out there, took a risk with a man. It has been a busy and fun summer full of surprises, glee and creativity.

This summer has also been wrought with death or, at least, dying. A little more than three weeks after I went into remission, my mom was diagnosed with a fatal illness. At first, this news rocked me - I knew so because my entire body felt heavy and achy. I absolutely believe that our bodies speak to us and this time my body was telling me that I was feeling guilty for being healthy. Thankfully, my spiritual director noticed this immediately and talked me down from the proverbial ledge. "You cannot go where your mother is going," he said. My body's heavy cloak began to dissipate soon after. And, yet, grieving never ceases.

My entire Self - mind, body, spirit - seems to be engaged in a tension I have never before experienced. Whereas before I experienced an either-or kind of life - either I am sick or I'm not; either I'm happy or I'm not; either I like you or I do not - now life seems to have been tipped over, leaving me to experience a whole mess of emotions; at times I cannot distinguish which is which.

But I'm feeling them all the same.

And that, my friends, is exactly how I know I am healthy and becoming healthier. Because I can laugh, play and explore, while also feeling sad, confused and angry. (It's like somebody agreed to pay me for saying "fuck" - I swear it just rolls right off the tongue.) Why even my lymph nodes will grow a cold to complete the trifecta.

Without negating the biological nature of Lyme Disease, this recovery has really been a journey about relearning how to feel. When the Lyme weaseled its way into my life, a few seemingly contradictory things occurred. First, I became partially paralyzed, leaving me numb and unable to move. Second, the Lyme felt very painful: my skin crawled, my muscles ached and I felt incredibly fatigued. So on one hand, I stopped feeling, but strangely, I also began to feel too much. Thus, the following four years became a lesson in how to feel in ways that healed and soothed rather than ravaged and suffocated.

Last week, my pastor Ryan asked me how I was doing and I told him - ohhhh, I told him. Because what came out were a barrage of feelings, as there was and is no box for the feelings that exist within me. For the next 10 minutes, I verbalized everything I could think of, leaving nothing out. Shortly afterward, I apologized to Ryan for my emotional vomit, but, quite fortunately, he wouldn't accept it. Because instead he chose to accept me, to accept all of me, without judgment or blame.

Unbeknownst to me, I had a pivotal conversation with my spiritual director just before my mom's news hit. "Why was David 'a man after God's own heart'?" he asked.

"Hmm, I don't know," I said.

"It's because David gave God his whole heart. Obviously David was a very flawed man, but just as God gives us His whole heart, so, too, does he want us to give Him ours."

God isn't interested in who we should be, but who we are; He wants us to be true to ourselves and to whom He made us to be. With enduring mercy, God gives us the freedom to enter into the space to work things out within ourselves and within our communities, in interaction with He/She/It.

Isn't that lovely? Isn't that freeing? That we don't have to be forced to be someone that we're not ready for? If so, getting Lyme and living in the consequential recovery was the space I needed to be the someone I couldn't be otherwise. I truly believe that I wouldn't be able to feel this much and to love this much and to want this much without those fucking buggers. 

This truly is a scary prospect, however, but being on the other side - or, rather, another side - gives me hope that uncertainty propels us forward into something different, something unseen and something powerful. Indeed, uncertainty is what keeps us feeling, which is the best way I know how to continue living.

A.