“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham
I was talking with my sister yesterday, and she said to me, “Hey, are you planning anything special for your thirty year anniversary tomorrow?”
“Huh?” I replied.
“You know, this Saturday is the same weekend thirty years ago when you were bitten by the tick that gave you Lyme disease. Ekka weekend. That anniversary!”
Simone remembered because I glued the tick into her school diary, which, weirdly, she kept for all those years! Thanks, Sissy 🙂
Wow. Thirty years. That’s such a long time.
It made me sad at first, to think of how much of my life has been claimed by this disease, and then I decided that enough of my life has been given over to sadness. I thought long and hard about how Lyme has changed me.
This is what I came up with.
If I hadn’t been bitten by the tick I would have gone on to become a lawyer, and my ambitions would have taken me far, far from here. I would have never married my first husband. I would not have gone to the Kimberley for my life changing connection with the Aboriginal Aunties. I would have continued to ignore or hide my psychic gift. I would have shunned this thing that I am, in favour of something more conventional.
Lyme has stripped almost everything away from me. My ability to have kids, to study, to live a normal life, to work in a normal job.
But it left me two things. My ability to love, and my ability to live and work within the metaphysical planes of existence. I had always seen that as a diminishment, and now I see that Lyme distilled me down to my essence, and forced me to live as a psychic. It was the only thing left that I could do.
That’s actually a beautiful thing, hard a journey as it’s been.
Now, as my health slowly returns, as I walk this hard journey of healing, things are being added back in to my life. My ability to think, to write – these two things have become such precious, precious gifts. When I was young I took it all for granted.
No more.
Tomorrow I shall celebrate my essence. The gifts of love, compassion, psychic connection, perseverance, moral courage, gratitude and hope, and the return of words, imagination and the ability to write again.
That’s worth a good cake, don’t you think?
The owl in the tree outside my window agrees!
