Here's a picture of my beloved
flute... truly, this beautiful instrument feels like a part of my body when I
hold it, an extension of my arms, hands -
I wrote a piece a year ago
"Speaking my truth, the depth of my loss," & it still
resonates... I said at the end "I KNOW I need to create some kind of life... but I ALSO
need to feel - even on meds, and CBT - the depth of my loss...".
These 2 ideas - creating some kind of life,
& feeling the depth of my loss - will always be true... they're not
mutually exclusive.
Sometimes the pain of my loss - how my life changed -is a deep,
heavy ache inside of me... the loss I feel the most keenly is still about
music... giving flute lessons, playing duets, trios, playing in a band...
simply picking up my flute, taking out a favorite piece of music - &
playing.
I also used to sing in our congregational
choir - which I really enjoyed - but that's been taken away from me as well, by
my illness. I can sing with Ron & my daughters for Chanukah, or sing Happy
Birthday, but that's it. Better than nothing, absolutely, but a major loss.
I'm slowly coming to terms with the
fact that this pain will never completely go away. It's the same as the loss of
a loved one... hopefully over time, the pain, the grief will be less intense.
Part of that will come from talking
about it. I learned to play flute when I
was 9 yrs old, took my first flute lesson in high school. I first sang in a
choir as a college student - & I'm now 57. Nowhere in my plans was it
"get sick at age 50, a life-changing kind of sick."
But that's what happened. I'm one of
many, many people with health conditions that change their lives forever. Forever isn't a word to be used lightly -
just like the word "never" - but sometimes it applies.
And yet, if I'm honest, I'm still
grateful to be alive, to be able to try... even though some days I don't really
feel like trying, I feel like saying "the hell with it"... but on
most days, I know I need to keep going, figuring out whatever I can.
