It's Halloween....

Happy Halloween everyone!  Hope you all enjoy a spooktacular day!

This year, my thoughts are about masks.  As kiddos are out wearing their masks, I think about the masks we adults wear....that fake smile that says "Everything's ok"....when it isn't.  That look on one's face that says they aren't mad, when their insides are probably screaming....and let us not forget about pain.  Those of us who look fine on the outside, but who are suffering with every fiber of their being on the inside.

I'm not going to lie, I'm no stranger to pain, in my childhood I experienced quite a bit of it, some of it emotional, some of it physical, but nothing compares to the pain I have now after an automobile accident I endured nearly a year ago.

While I smile and appear "fine" on the outside to those around me, on the inside, the pain is sometimes all consuming.  I HATE it.  I hate the aches, the pains the overall feeling of extreme discomfort.  Short of laying down flat, there is no comfortable stance or position for me.  Sitting is uncomfortable, standing is uncomfortable, driving, thinking....it all hurts to do, yet I cannot NOT do it...I have to work, I have to continue to live a "normal" life, when NOTHING about the way I feel these days, feels normal to me.

People keep asking me, when are you going to close out your car accident insurance claim.....and I don't  know what to tell them, because I don't know if I'll EVER feel better....a stark reality that makes me scared to death, think about that for a second..."What if I never get better???" is that not one of the scariest things to realize, that perhaps this is the best you're ever going to feel again, and what you feel now is pain?

Suddenly your life isn't fun, your life revolves around heating pads and ice packs and OTC pain relievers, and physical therapy and chiropractor appointments.  Your no longer ABLE to do the things you used to, and if you DO do them, you pay for them severely in the amount of pain it causes you TO do them.

Pain is something I never truly understood, I had no idea you could look so "normal" and yet hurt so badly...every minute of every day.  Pain like nails on a chalkboard, impossible to ignore.

I could go the Dr. and ask for pain meds, but I don't want to be addicted to those, I don't want my physical status to be ruled by what drug's I've ingested.  I just want more than anything to feel BETTER, to feel like the old me who could run and skip and jump and smile without so much effort and side effects.

Most people have no idea that you have your health, until you don't.  Suddenly the thing you once took for granted is gone, and you are no longer you, you're a shell of who and what you used to be.  And it can be taken from you in an instant, just like your life, it could be gone in a mere heart pounding moment.  Poof, gone.

So for those of you who don't suffer, please, for me, appreciate that.  For those of you who do, I can sympathize.  For those of you with hidden illnesses, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, etc., you suffer behind your smiles, and I never understood that better than I do now....I pray for cures for all of those things.

There are a lot of ways to suffer in this world, and so many do so silently.

I am not here to complain, or to whine, or to beg for sympathy, "poor me" is not my thing, but just know that sometimes, just because someone looks like this:  

doesn't mean they don't actually feel like This:

  

There's a saying that goes something like this:  "Be kind to everyone you meet, for you don't know what kind of battles they are facing..."  and I think it's important to remember that, when you encounter people who are not at their best, perhaps they aren't FEELING their best.

It's tough sometimes to put your best foot forward when all you want to do is curl up in a ball, and rock back and forth, praying the pain subsides.

I know, because I feel this way myself more times than I like to admit.

~

Health.

is

Priceless

~

Cherish

it

~

Painfully Yours,

~HeatherLynn~