Those Big Conversations…

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”
~ Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

For a long time (my whole adult life in fact) I have been so busy surviving – plugging away at seemingly impossible dreams or at the simple tasks of everyday living – that we haven’t really stopped to ask ourselves the big questions.

You know the ones.

Why am we living here?

What makes us happy?

Is this all there is?

Do we actually want something different?

If one of us croaked it tomorrow what would we regret not having done?

Is there something big calling us, something we feel compelled to do or be?

Sure, we’ve thought about these things in general terms. And we’ve certainly set goals.  But when you live with a chronic illness and every day is a struggle, most of your focus is on getting through the day, and convincing yourself and those around you that you’re coping when actually you are far from fine.

My husband’s been too busy looking after me, and trying to keep me alive, to think about those answers for himself. He sacrificed his career and most of his life dreams as I became more ill and could no longer live independently.

Because of Ben I’ve been able to keep up my psychic work, and I persevered with my writing, even when it was almost impossible. Because of him I never gave up.

And now it’s all changing.

Suddenly my husband and I are having the big conversations. The ones I had thought reserved for uni students after a few drinks, late at night when the rest of the world had gone to bed.

After years of mystery illness I have a definitive diagnosis – lyme disease and several co-infections. Two and a half years of intense antibiotic and herbal therapy have saved my life. I’m no longer dying. In fact I’m slowly but surely improving.

My world is opening out again.

Problem is, Ben and I have become so used to living in this tiny, limited space imposed upon us by my illness that realising we have a future together when we’d expected otherwise means we need to reevaluate our direction, our decisions, our priorities.

It’s exciting, and a little bit scary.

I also see it as a blessing. To have this second chance. To be able to make conscious choices. To talk together as a couple about what is important to us. To share our hopes and dreams. To acknowledge our mutual desire to have someone else do the housework. 🙂 To speak to the fact that after living happily for endless months in a three-star hotel room in a third-world country we don’t actually need much to be happy.

We don’t have any answers yet, but we have a beginning. There’s so much to talk about. And that’s just grand!

How about you? Do you need to take some time to think about those big questions too?

Thinking of you and sending so much love, Nicole <3 xoxo