Good, Bad, Beautiful or Sorrowful.

I've recently been asked this question a few times a week for the last few months:
"Why is a pretty girl like you single?"

I cringe.  I am instantly an introvert.  A little piece of my heart is stabbed.
I respond politely by saying I don't have time.  I say that I just got out of a bad relationship.  I say that I don't know where I'm going to end up in a few months.  Or what the future holds for me once I'm fully treated.  Or I just change the subject completely, hoping they would get the hint. (They don't.)

I say all these silly things when, truly, I am ready for love.  But is love ready for me?

My heart twinges when I watch a romantic movie or when I see an elderly couple holding hands while walking through a grocery store.  I day dream about having a beautiful house and a plethora of animals roaming country land.  I constantly think about holding my future children.  I hope that one day all of these things will become my reality.

I'm not physically terminal.  I'm mentally terminal.  I let a few sour relationships ruin the future of blooming buds.  I push away people that are close to me so they don't have to keep seeing me in pain or at the hands of defeat after another failed attempt at making me pain-free.  Sometimes I am the venom that seeps out of the python's mouth.  But I am also the mouse it snatches up from its burrow, fearfully hiding in the shadows. 

Here is a glimpse of my mind when I think about going on a date or getting into a relationship or even someone flirting with me.

Wonderful!  He likes me.  He wants to see more of me.  He wants to hold my hand during a movie or put his jacket around my shoulders on a frosty night or kiss me at the foot of my door.  He is genuinely interested in my being.  

But does he know I have chronic pain?  Does he know I might be like this forever?  Will he be able to understand the exhaustion?  Will he get mad at me for missing family functions or important reservations?  Can he picture himself bringing me to doctor appointments or having to sit and hold my hand in the physician's office after the injections don't work?  Can he watch me cry over and over and over again; after an appointment? On the bathroom floor?  Under the covers not wanting to see the world?  After dropping a glass?  

Is he capable of some days holding two people together?  Is he capable of knowing times he has to say get your shit together, it's going to be a beautiful day?  Is he capable of loving me for who I am? Sick or not?  In pain or not?  Happy or sad?

Can he wait for the amazing days?  The beautiful days?  The days where I am full of life, smirking while sipping my hot coffee on the porch.  The nights where I could walk around town and hold his hand forever.  The nights where I surprise him with movie tickets and a drive to the lighthouse.  The mornings where he smiles the second I wake up and the nights he rubs my back and kisses me until I fall asleep. 

After pondering relationships for many months, especially after my surgery didn't help my symptoms, I find myself reaching for something I sometimes cannot grasp:  an answer to all of my questions.  The beauty of it is:  Maybe one day they will be answered, maybe not.  But it doesn't matter, because life is crazy.  Life is full of surprises.  Life tests you to your limits and makes you fall or it makes you stand tall and fight.  I was lost in all of my thoughts and doubts for awhile until a good friend quoted Heraclitus by saying, "Change is the only constant in life."  Whether it be good, bad, beautiful or sorrowful.  There will be change.  And everyone will go through it.

Will I find someone?  Maybe.  Will they accept my change?  Maybe.  Will I accept their change?  Forever.



Equanimity.

-Kelsey