I’ve been writing a lot lately. Trying to get my thoughts in order. I apologize if they are wildly disorganized but it’s been helping me a lot. Mostly coming to terms with the bad things life has brought me. As before I tended to focus only on the good. Ignoring the bad even if it meant suppressing it. And thanks to recent events uncovering it for me, I am finally feeling able to address it all and move on from it. Thanks to my donor, their family, my family, and the doctors and nurses helping get my double lung transplant for making these extra years possible. It’s been incredible and healing.
After 35 years of fighting to survive everything that’s been thrown at my poor little body, the so much that has been taken from me physically and mentally, and the fact that I’m still here on this earth is wild. I feel lately as if I’ve almost outlived myself. I’ve outlived all my plans and desires for my lifetime. Believing largely that I only had 15-16 years to live. If that. I do believe I fit all that I wanted of life into those years, so this is all just extra. It’s been quite shocking to say the least.
I’ve done so much. Created. Lived. Loved. Worked. Experienced. Seen. Breathed. I’ve watched some of my most precious and closest loved ones take their last breaths. I’ve lived without many abilities that people seem to normally have. Like without the ability to breathe, til I was 21 years old. I’ve seen myself through death and life and everything in between. I’ve lived, fully, but I’ve also suffered, deeply. I’ve lost so many things, and I’ve had to come to terms with the loss while accepting it all as the new status quo. Accepting what I cannot control.
I spent many minutes and hours and days wondering what’s next. Throughout it all. Bad and good. I can’t quite comprehend that I get a next, each new day, each new breath. But the real question I have now is: what’s left? What’s left to do now to continue on in this beautiful journey of life that I haven’t already experienced to the most I’ve been capable of physically and mentally. What do I want out of this life now and in the future for whatever amount of time I will be gifted to be around. How do I use the rest of this spare time wisely. Even though I only entertained a 16-ish year lifespan and what it means to soon be turning 36. Running out of ideas and mentally unprepared for more life. Honestly.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about independence. Something I have wanted deeply for many years. But due to my physical health it has been nearly impossible. I may have had the ability to work full time for many years, but that has not been the norm. And providing for myself has been few and far between for most of my entire life if not entirely impossible and it’s been the hardest thing for me to come to terms with after outliving my life expectancy for over 20 years.
I have made myself pretty happy in the situations I’ve been put in no matter what. Besides a few traumas I can’t seem to shake. They almost hold me stuck in a time I’d like to not remember at all and the flashbacks shake me to my core each time leaving me feeling more wounded than before. I thought I couldn’t imagine letting one thing that happened nearly 14 years ago screw up my second chance at life but it seems to keep coming back and still keeps me on my toes which is awfully sad given I have someone else’s lungs to show around life for the time being.
Lately I’ve just been writing. Writing about this event that shaped my second life and about things that I’ve gone through. It’s become wildly important in my journey and has brought me both great joy and great pain.
Moral of the story is I’m finally processing what it means to be alive a second time. Not just crossing things off my bucket list and going from one amazing thing to the next. Actually living and feeling and loving this second chance. And surpass expectations in incredible amounts. As well as the joys a fears that come with life and all of this brokenness and love. I can’t quite believe I’m still walking this earth today. I don’t know if I will still be tomorrow. But I hope I can wake up with a smile if so, and just be grateful for the opportunities life provides me when they become a possibility in each new and quickly passing day.
I am ready, and willing with open arms to continue to live with these lungs that aren’t mine, to experience more of life with them and live and breathe all that life has to offer for me right now. I can handle the trauma and the suffering I have encountered in this life while I explore what’s left for me. The unknowns. The gifts. The love. The fight I am willing to fight. To continue. I’m here for it, all of it.