Acceptance is Mine

It sure doesn’t feel like I thought it would. Acceptance has been an elusive unicorn for years. In a previous post, “To Be or Not To Be…Disabled Acceptance,” exploring what it would mean to accept fibromyalgia. Imagine thinking I had a choice.

Perhaps I thought of acceptance as a shiny bauble; I’d find that treasure and somehow it would magically change my life. I’d confused acceptance with being content, at least satisfied. The idea that there was a dazzling bright gem that I needed to shatter in order to find a black stone in the middle hadn’t even occurred to me.

Yesterday, the pretty, luminescent, faux pearl broke like an ornament falling off the top of the tree. The hard, dark rock in the center dropped between my feet and I hung my head and cried – and cried and cried. I realized there was nothing to look for; it was here all along, waiting for me. This is.

Traveling to Puerto Vallarta was a wonderful plan that kept me on a high from October to the middle of our vacation just over a week ago. Reality was real there, too. Chronic illness and pain do not take a break. Ever.

So, here I am. In this shitty, lonely suffering that hasn’t seen significant relief despite trying everything that’s come into my view for many years. I am a person who is in pain every moment of every day, has been weighed down by depression and wound up with anxiety for decades now, and has cognitive difficulties that are disabling. The “real” Sara is only in my memory and today’s Sara is all there is. That’s acceptance.