I’ve had the pleasure of reading the book, “The Body Is A Doorway” by Sophie Strand and it has deeply resonated with me. Her raw and poignant memoir has resonated with so deeply in fact that there are times I feel like I am reading my own story. My own published and much more eloquently written story. Her writing acknowledges and celebrates what it means to be a human navigating illness and a healing journey.. she mentions it all.. the brutal and the beautiful. She’s not afraid spelunking her way down into the brutal and she doesn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate even the smallest beautiful moments she experienced on her journey.

Like many people with chronic illness she has had to navigate the reactions, opinions, judgements, etc of others. Trust me it’s one of the most fun parts of being chronically ill. You feel like crap and you get to sometimes navigate people’s crappy opinions, ideas, cultural narratives, etc. She writes, “They were increasingly uncomfortable that I was obviously on a different trajectory, so they chose to avoid seeing me rather than confront the brutal reminder that life doesn’t always make sense. To be a sick person is to know that you are always, simply by being alive and being unwell, someone else’s rude awakening.” These 2 sentences stopped me in my tracks when I read them because she so eloquently articulated what I have felt many times in my own illness journey. I am a walking reminder that life can change in an instant and that often there is no warning sign that the rug is about to be pulled out from underneath you. Rude awakening.. party of 1 over here.

In my own journey, I have had people ask me what about me made me get so sick from Covid, what did I do or not do to get so sick, what medicine/ treatment I should have done to be better by now, etc. In the beginning of my illness journey these comments would sting and bruise. I felt shame for being ill and would feel like I needed to explain my story, so as to change the person’s mind. I felt this need to have my journey, symptoms, story, etc validated by total strangers as if somehow their stamp of approval would mean that I had done everything right and that none of this was my fault.

Side note: I wouldn’t have needed this validation nor would these comments have stung if I somewhere inside me I didn’t believe this was ally my fault. To be honest almost 3 years in there are still times I blame myself for getting sick. I think, I should have worn a mask to the trainings and events I was at where I most likely got Covid, I should have known there was mold in my apartment sooner, I should have never moved back to my hometown, etc. This song of should haves plays on a loop in my mind some days and then I have to change tracks and play the song of bad shit happens and that’s just life. That bad shit just happens song is clearly a very uplifting piece, joyful, and full of poppy dance beats. It’s not on Apple Music, but I am happy to share the track with those who are interested.

Almost 3 years into my journey, I am learning to understand where the above mentioned comments come from. They don’t come from a place of people thinking me being sick is my fault. These comments come from a place of real fear. A place of “Oh shit, if that could happen to her, that could also happen to me.” Some people are able to deal with those fears and some people have to find a way to distance themselves from these understandable fears. They have to physically distance themselves and/or they have to figure out a reason why what happened to me could never happen to them.

Unfortunately, spoiler alert: what happened to me could absolutely happen to you. You could be fine one day and wake up the next day sick and be left with chronic conditions. Besides living in an apartment with mold, there is nothing that makes me unique, now there is plenty that makes me unique in general, just nothing that makes me unique in why I got Covid and ended up with several chronic illnesses as a result. Each day could unbeknownst to you be your last day. Your last day of being healthy, your last day of working at a job, your last day of having a roof over your head, your last day of being able bodied, etc. It’s scary to realize and accept that in this life we have very little control over what happens. It’s also scary to realize that often the rug gets pulled out from underneath us with absolutely no warning at all. If you read my horoscope that day before I got sick with Covid you would laugh because nowhere in there does it read “An asteroid in the form of Covid is about to come and blow up your life.” Clearly the people reading the stars that day missed something.

While we don’t have control over much we aren’t totally at the mercy of life. We get to control how we respond to what life brings our way, what and who we let in our lives, and how we live our lives. Do we live our lives with fear driving the bus or do we live our lives knowing that if the rug gets pulled out from underneath us we will be able to figure it out? I used to live my life with fear driving the bus and assuming that if I thought through every possible scenario life could throw my way then nothing could knock me off my path. Yeah, that life philosophy clearly worked out well for me. In the last 3 years I have learned that you just have to take life as it comes and figure it out as you go. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t and sometimes really bad shit happens.. that’s life. I feel like I have learned how not to sweat the small stuff and how to just go with the flow.. most days. These are valuable lessons I would have loved to learn any other way possible, but I learned them this way.

The next time you encounter something you fear or something that doesn’t make sense whether that’s a person’s story, an idea, a belief, etc try and resist the urge to let fear drive the bus. Resist the urge to try and make it make sense and make it fit inside a box that feels comfortable for you. Try and feel your fear and ask yourself “Where is this coming from and what is this fear telling me?” This advice applies to situations that don’t include tarantulas, snakes, and/or bats. If any of those things are involved feel free to let fear drive the bus and run like hell to get away from them.