One of the hardest things about being chronically ill is not knowing the end date to it all; the “chronic” part of chronic illness.
It’s not knowing when you’ll get better, how long it will take, or what the future looks like.
It’s not like those times in life when you have to endure something gruelling but you have an end date in sight.
It’s easy then in those situations to say, “Only X more days left, you can do this”, “not long now, keep going”.
But when you live with a chronic illness you don’t get to have those reassuring mantras because you have no idea how long you have to keep going or how many days are left.
Most of us “chronically” ill have already endured so much; endless, endless days of hard work and courage, that it becomes so easy to forget that there will one day be an end date to all of this.
There will be a day when you wake up and your first thoughts won’t be what supplements you have to take, how you have to pace yourself – rearranging and cancelling activities and adding in rest periods to cope.
There will be a time when you wake up and your first thoughts will be of the endless possibilities the day brings.
To realise that all illness-related thoughts no longer take centre stage in your mind.
Thoughts of life, hope, energy, and possibility will become second nature to you.
So even though I have no end date yet,
even though I have no idea how much longer I’ll have to endure all of this,
that doesn’t take away the fact that the end date is still there.
It is still very real, still very achievable, and one day I will reach it, and so will you too.
Rooting for you always.
🌱🌟
(Originally posted on @mindfullyevie Instagram and Facebook)