I ask myself frequently if I will ever be “me” again.  What I don’t ask myself is who this “me” is.  Can I accomplish finding that person again? Do I WANT to find that person again?

When I think about “me,” I think about the person I was before I got sick.  If I really stop to think about it, am I wanting that person back or am I hiding from who I am now?   I think that is one of the problems that people with chronic issues have.  Once you have a traumatic event in life that changes the way you perceive yourself,it feels different than just changing yourself through growth.  I think having an event that changes us feels like we were changed without permission.  

When I say I want the old me back,  I am saying I want to do all of the things I did before this event changed my life.  I want to walk, talk, think and feel like I did before.  I don’t want to take ten minutes to understand what you said so I can respond.  I don’t want to have pain.  I could make a very long list of my wants.  The point is, my life changed dramatically.  I have a very wise person in my life who told me once: Change the word “can’t” to “I choose not to.”  You CAN do anything – you just choose not to.  NO,  I want to stomp my foot and say “I CAN’T walk!” “I can’t choose to do something that I can’t do!”  What I am not saying to myself is “walking is now difficult, I need to try it differently.”  I realize there are exceptions to this rule.  I don’t have exceptions that I can’t work around though.

Looking back at the old me, I see a beautiful woman who had the whole world in her hands.  She could exercise, work, shop and go out with friends.  If I stop and look at how the old me would be now without that event, I see an unaffected beautiful woman with the whole world in her hands.  I don’t stop and think about the fact that she would have aged, gone through changes in her life and had other events that would have affected her.  I don’t see that she would have grown through a  journey in her life too.  I forget that.  She wouldn’t be the same either.

I think when we look back at our old “me” we look back at someone we admired.  I liked who I was.  I miss who I was.  Wait! I didn’t have a door slam shut on me after this traumatic event.  I had a door close and opened another door I didn’t expect.  I need to learn who this me became when I went through that door.  Just like I would have needed to learn who I was if I went through the door I expected.  

Life changes with or without traumatic events.  No one remains the same “me” forever. There are ways I can still be my old me.  I shop online, visit friends through FaceTime and even walk around my cul-de-sac on my good days.    I am “me,” just a new me and I’m ok with that.