Sanity may be madness, but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be. ~ Don Quixote

I’ve been vacillating between various states of madness, excitement, and sadness these past days since my diagnosis.  Madness that I am not actually insane, the pain I feel, and have felt, all these days and years is as real as the breath I am exhaling, the art on the walls, and the downy clouds in the sky.

Excitement that the pain angrily pulsing like Metallica in my abdomen will end soon.  With it will come a genuine renaissance, me without the questions, wonderings, and worryings worn like the pages of an oft read letter.  These thoughts, feelings, pokings and proddings will be replaced with a lightness in my body and an ease so staggeringly simple that I cannot quite fathom it at present.

And sadness.  Sadness that the essential parts that make me a woman and a mother, of sorts, to the cats, plants, flowers, and bees, were all these years, utterly incapable of creating a human life.  Despite the fact that I never wanted them to anyway.

Then, in this pattern, I come back to Quixote’s maddest of all and embrace my life just as it is, without shoulds.  I love this pain that causes me to question all that I know.  I love this pain that says it is okay to ask for help.  I love this pain that makes my body writhe and jerk and laugh at the sight of itself.  I love this pain that teaches me to hold closer those I love and let go of those I don’t or can’t.

Then, there is this – that my Creator had the vision and my young ears the hearing to heed the message:  You shall not have children, nor an empty life but one full of laughter, friends, song, beautiful words, and love, love most of all.