All photographs this week taken within my home in case you hadn’t noticed. Over the last year I have spent a gob smacking, eye watering, jaw dropping, nose shattering (ok u get the gist) amount of time indoors. Like 99%. And within these walls I have been able to do very little physically or mentally so the bulk of that gargantuan piece of time pie has been spent staring into space. Major Babycakes to ground control…check the sofa, stereo on…
The only thing I’ve been able to do to pass the time is listen to music. I would be dead without music. My constant companion. My mood regulator. My daily joy injection. There are some people with my condition who can’t even listen to music because they are too sound sensitive so I am truly grateful and something I never take for granted.
Once you have been housebound for an extended period of time you never take anything for granted again..and being stuck inside this comfy prison I find myself more with gratitude for the things I have than disappointment for the things I don’t. It’s warm. It’s comfortable, I have high ceilings, I have good food and there is no chance of being shivved. I also have an amazing warden (with benefits).
A very close friend of mine is going thru extreme cancer treatment at the moment and is also full of gratitude for what she has as oppose to just focussing on the relentless shit show she is dealing with. We share a similar outlook and this is not a coincidence. The more you suffer the more you to appreciate life. The more you endure the hard shit the more you can enjoy the good shit. Unless you start a pity party for yourself. That’s the only thing you cannot do. So the hardships everyone is desperate to avoid will actually bring them what they are endlesssly seeking..true happiness which is happiness that does not require anything other than what you already have.
When everything is taken away from you, careers, friendships, pursuits, lifestyle choices..all the things you think made you you, you would think you would somehow cease to exist, or that you will be a less of a person but when they are all removed you are still you. In fact, you are more you because you realise that all these externals are not the things that define you. Without anything you are already everything you need to be. I feel more me now than I ever did and I require no outside validation to prove it.
This perspective is priceless. Would i have chosen to have four years of my life taken up with a chronic debilitating illness with a barrage of symptoms day and night to get it? Of course not, im not a fucking masochist! However i now choose to focus on what it has given me rather than what it has taken away. Eckhart Tolle in the Power of now (which am currently audiobooking) states with every moment “act like you choose it” and I love that. It stops you being a victim. It empowers you.
Don’t get me wrong, its been a fucking slog. And there were days when I thought I would lose my mind. And yet here I still am. I still exist. Nothing can take that away from me..well apart from death obviously..that’s a given..but until then Major Babycakes is chuffed to be alive, sitting on a rock floating in space around a giant fireball in an area so vast it apparently has no end. And the stars look very different today…
