Struggling to find the joy

The three viruses which rule my body all raged at once last week.  I found myself suppressing surliness, gravitating between tears of frustration and anger that I seemed to have exceeded a reasonable lifetime allotment of individual medical issues.  I kept muttering over and over:  Don’t complain, don’t complain, at least it’s not cancer; you know plenty of people with cancer who have it so much worse than you.  The HHV-6 has caused two new and very annoying conditions as it rages against the drug given to me at Stanford.  My body has become a battleground.  I tell myself each waking moment and even in my dreams:  But you’re alive; you awaken each morning; where life continues, hope can rise.

This morning my porch plants, which had begun to droop in the heat of the last few days, raised their heads again, replenished by the rain.  I drove through neighborhood with shattered trees and windswept gravel and I breathed the scent of rain hanging in the air.  I told myself, this is life, these trials; if you breathe deeply enough, you can breathe joy through every fiber of your being.  I’m struggling to let the joyfulness course through my veins.  I’m not complaining.  I close  my eyes:  I let tranquility claim me.  I carry on.

Joy

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