A good quote can make you go hmmmm

A few days ago I happened upon this quote:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

I thought to myself – this is the story of my life…or at least the life I have lived the last 3.5 yrs. My reality was as follows:

I can no longer wear heels

I can no longer eat what I want to because it clogs the illy

I can’t go anywhere without fear that this bag will explode – which it has done several times

I can no longer be in a bikini

I am no longer sexy or appealing to anyone

I can no longer wear form-fitting clothes or anything smaller than a size14

I will never be able to function like I did before

I will never be able to trust people I thought of as friends, family, or any other title given again

I will always feel let-down, disappointed

No one truly understands what it’s like to live like this day in, day out

I will just have to fake it until it becomes a part of life like brushing my teeth

I will have to fake it because

I won’t ever feel whole again.

These are just a few of the things I battled daily – no hourly with living with an ileostomy. I often felt like the stereotypical ‘fat’ person…you never see a sad ‘fat’ person…so those moments – the real moments when pain ripped though my body, moments when I spent hours crying because that was truly all I could do, when asked I simply responded “I’m fine” because the history with some was “they really don’t want to hear the truth anyway”.

So life is taking on a different reality – it’s a 2 X 2.5 X 2.5 hole that is where my ‘illy’ used to be. By all things natural I’m thrilled even as I look at the crater that is packed with gauze daily by my nurse. I know that it will close itself in a few weeks and then as someone said “life will get back to normal”. My question is “what is that?” What is ‘normal’?

This quote makes me think about my life, my family, my friends…and what reality is. Reality isn’t that they necessarily stop caring – they just go on with life. Reality isn’t necessarily that after an event that is important to YOU (meaning me!!) should be allowed to be minimized by people who have no clue to what you’ve gone through and even less to whom you really are. Reality doesn’t mean that there won’t be moments of sadness, or tears or still an occasional pity-party. Reality is that each of us heals on our own time. No one can rush the process; no one can tell you to get over it; no one can take away what is your present reality.

So what does this have to do with the quote…well my changes started in December and yes I still have my faults. A lot of them perhaps, but I’m not the same person I was circa 2006. I’m not the same person I was circa June 30, 2009. I’m hoping I won’t be the same person in a few months from now. I’m hoping I’ll be more grounded, more self-assured, more confident. I don’t want to be the ‘old Lisa’…I couldn’t even if I did want to. That person in effect – died and so did some of her dreams. What I want is for people who are my friends, for my family, to acknowledge that this was a journey that I traveled alone. Even with well wishes, and prayer…it was something – no an existence that I lived alone. Daily. Now, I’m moving past it – maybe not as quickly as you would like…hey, it’s not as quickly as I would like, but there is another Lisa that will emerge out of the ashes, like a Phoenix and I will fly again. I will live again. I AM Living Now.

I guess the moral of this as I re-read what I’ve just written…is ‘closure’ is finally happening.