It’s okay to feel a little broken sometimes. Even if you received the chance of a lifetime. A second chance to live. A second chance to breathe. Something you always dreamed of. When the expectations don’t meet reality. It can hurt. It’s hard to feel anything less than grateful though, even to just merely be alive. But also for the circumstances. I feel incredibly grateful.
It’s bittersweet to be honest. To be alive in a world with so much pain and suffering.
I do tend to always only see the good in my own life. To look on the bright side. But lately I’ve been seeing life for what it is. Which isn’t always so good. It’s definitely okay to not be okay with it all. It’s okay to feel lost or like something isn’t right. There is so much pain and suffering in the world, even if it isn’t affecting you, even if you don’t see it, it’s there.
Sometimes I wonder why I got this second chance at life. When everything before was so picturesque. Perfect. Except for the fact that I was deathly ill. My life was amazing. I lost a lot of the present moment, lost a lot of my life, to dreaming about the possibility of a future with new lungs. To dreaming about the future, a maybe that may not ever even exist.
Now that it’s here, it’s been incredible, for me, but I am seeing the world, and it’s particularly sad it’s in such bad shape. So much chaos and hurt. I love my life, but I always wonder why it didn’t end when my original lungs died but didn’t take me with them. Why me? Why was I given a second chance at life when so many others aren’t even given a fair first chance.
I’m sure I will always have this question. Why me? But the weird part is that I never questioned “why me” before. Why was I born with a debilitating terminal illness. Why did I not get an average lifespan. Why did I have to fight so hard, try so hard to just stay alive. To just breathe. When everyone else seemed to be doing it so effortlessly.
I was more in the camp of why not me about my disease. I felt like I did a good job at it, I felt like I handled it well. But now, like why am I even still here. What’s my purpose. It’s bizarre to think that I was somehow saved from my terminal illness to be here and yet I’m like running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Trying my damn best but it doesn’t look like it. It doesn’t feel like it.
I just want to be useful. To make something, work on something, or to try to make something better. I want to know why I’m here. Still. After 35 years when I was suppose to die when I was 12. Saved by medicine, science, and technology. I do believe I earned it, fought for it. But it’s entirely too much to grasp sometimes. I love, love, love being alive, that’s why I fought so hard for this gift, these lungs, this transplant. This future. I wasn’t ready to die and still am not.
But I want to be useful, I got a second chance at living. When like I said some don’t even get a fair first chance. That’s huge! I just wish I knew what to do with it. I can’t solely live for myself, or my bucket list as I had been, even if they are my lungs now. I’ve gotten what I feel like is far too much extra time. Time I never imagined or planned for or even dreamed of.
Oddly enough I have one thing left on my bucket list: Live to be 40. And I’m emotional for the fact that I have been able to nearly completely my bucket list. Now I might actually make it to 40. I will for sure cry. It would be way beyond my expectations. But when I get to this iconic year that I joked about nearly everyday while I was dying and re-living, I want to know some things. What did I do in those 40 years. What was I able to accomplish. Did I live true to myself. Was I trying my best. Did I love hard. Did I experience this second life deeply, was I free from regrets and was I able to let go of everything holding me back.
With that. I know I’ve got some work to do. 4 years to be better. 4 years to grow. Will I make it? No idea. But I won’t be wasting any of this precious life dreaming about the future. Not again. Not this time.