The Lost Life

Can I tell you what it does to always be chasing a life that you don't have? 

It makes you miss the one that you do. 

It's easy to see how rates of anxiety and depression are skyrocketing - it's because we create these beautiful pictures of our lives, these highlight reels, these computer-generated fantasies, and we post them online where our friends and family react just as we want them to, with proper awe and admiration. Then, we turn around and see the pile of laundry waiting to be folded, the floors that need vacuuming again, the dirty dishes that are stacking up, the oil spot in the driveway...and we feel like we've suddenly lost the life we never really had. You know, that picture-perfect life we've been projecting. 

But there's something even more insidious than that. It's that while we're busy trying to have that life, we aren't living this one. 

It's no secret that in 2020, I contracted "original" Covid - the Covid we had before we had treatment, before we had knowledge, before we had much of anything. At the time that I contracted it, we were in the middle of a surge of cases, so I didn't even get a hospital bed. (I'm actually thankful for that.) But Covid...wrecked me. 

It wrecked my body in ways that I still haven't recovered from. But that hasn't stopped me from trying. 

I spent the first few years after Covid running to doctors, pleading with them to figure out what was wrong, telling them that this isn't my life, that this isn't how I'm supposed to be. Insisting that I was not getting better. (I wasn't.) I made so many trips to the emergency room that I lost count. Every time something started happening again, I'd run to the ER thinking that this had to be the time we would finally catch it. This was going to be the batch of tests to show us what was going on. This was going to be the day I started getting my life back. 

But it never was. 

As I write, it has been almost six years since I contracted Covid, and I'm still not "better." That is, my body is still broken. And I keep thinking that I'm learning how to live with it, how to accommodate what is clearly my new life...but give me the opportunity to find something that will help, and I'll jump at the chance all over again. 

If I really slow down, though, and look at it and think about it, the thing I am most angry about in these whole six years is not getting sick. It's not not getting better. It's not the medical system that hasn't been able to help me. It's not the narratives that were told that were unhelpful. It's not the reputation I have, both with those who knew me before Covid and with those who didn't. It's not the idea of being "fragile." 

The thing I am most angry about is the increasing realization - this nagging feeling that I've had for the last couple of years - of how much of my life I have missed "trying to get my life back." Trying to get back the life that feels good for me. Trying to make things better. 

Honestly? They're pretty good. Aside from, like, randomly turning grey and almost passing out in my office and some weirdly consistent inconsistencies in my heart rhythm and the absolutely aggravating inability to drive safely, things are pretty good. 

I'm running 800+ miles a year...at a pace that pre-Covid me could only dream of. I am holding a full-time job where I am designated as the "lead" in my role. I had an amazing journey with my best friend...and am starting a new incredible journey with a new best friend. I'm not drowning in medical debt. I don't require portable oxygen. I've weaned off almost all of my medications and am down to just three prescriptions. I've lost several inches of weight around my waist, and I'm fairly solid muscle at this point. I have learned to breathe again, learned to control my heart rate, learned to walk again, learned to sleep more restfully, learned to eat better (most of the time ;) ). 

By every account, I'm a walking, talking, living, loving miracle...and somehow, I have wasted so much of this time trying to be more than that. I don't think I've taken full advantage of how incredible my story really is. 

Maybe one day, I'll forgive myself for that. 

But I tell that story to say this, because this is where we're at: this is what we're all doing to ourselves. We're cultivating and curating and highlighting and instagramming the lives we think ought to be ours, all the while missing out on the very real lives that we already have...lives that are already beautiful and wonderful and amazing and miraculous. 

And, mercifully, full of grace.

Even for a train wreck like me.