A while ago, I wrote a post called "This Body." And, while I do feel the way I felt when I wrote that post--while I do love the body that I live in--it's also so, so very hard sometimes to live in a body that is fighting so hard against you. Sometimes it's so hard to love a body that doesn't love you back.
Tonight was one of those times.
When I look in the mirror, I see eyes that don't work the way they are supposed to work anymore. I see an eye with one pupil that is bigger than it's supposed to be. I see that same eye that falls to the left without my glasses on. And I see eyes that sometimes fill with floating Lyme bacteria when I least expect it. Terrifying, unsettling, spiral shaped monsters in my eyes.
I see cheeks that turn red when I don't feel well. Giving away our secret. Making our invisible illness not so invisible. I see cheeks that puff up on mornings when I wake up swollen. For no reason other than the fact that I have Lyme. I see cheeks that used to just be rosy and now are just angry.
I see a mouth that swells up without warning. I see teeth in that mouth that are yellow from years of poison being put through them. I see a smile that is so hard some days. I see lips that speak the words that save me--to my doctors, to my friends, to my family, and to myself as I tell myself that I am going to be okay.
I see scars--on my chest from my ports, on my arms from IVs, on my hands from IVs, and on my leg from surgeries. I see weight I don't want, in places I don't want, from years of medicine I wish I didn't have to take.
I see a body that I feel like I'm floating outside of but desperately trapped inside of at the same time.
I love the body I live in because I'm doing just that, living, in it.
But sometimes it's just so, so hard to love a body that doesn't love you back.
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