The cans and can'ts

Value your body for what you can do, rather than despising it for what you can't.

That came to me as a bit of an epiphany this week. It's been so hard to forgive myself for what I can't do... It felt like I was finally making some slight progress, when I got hit with the inability to donate that I talked about in my last post (many weeks ago) - then I just sank back into the mire. And now I'm in the midst of my billionth round of just short of everyone around me being pregnant again - five in my department alone. Ahh.

Somehow it feels appropriate to alternate between punishing myself and numbing myself, but I've come to acknowledge that there's really nothing okay about either of those and I need to stop it.

For the purposes of an assessment, here are the main things my body can't do that I wish it could do:

• Create and carry our child
• Nurture and love our child
• Donate bone marrow
• Easily lose weight
• Burst into flight
• Make others burst into flames at will

And here are some cool the things my body can do:

• Laugh hysterically
• Smile 
• See beauty everywhere
• Listen 
• Speak and share
• Write out what's in my heart
• Love my husband fully
• Hug 
• Touch and feel
• Kiss
• Swim in the sea - other places too, but I sure adore the sea!
• Wear flip flops
• Feel sunshine
• Make funny faces with my niblings
• Smell lilacs - and a lot of other loveliness
• Knead dough
• Cook delicious food
• Eat delicious food
• Read wonderful stories 

Those really are some cool things!

No matter how grateful I am, they'll never make the sad things I can't do go away in the least - the sad things are pretty major, after all - but I just can't choose to hate a body that can let me experience so much wonder. I have to forgive and make peace.

So, forward.

Darling R has been encouraging me to write again, and I know it does help, so I'll try to get back in the swing of it.