To Survive...

It feels as though it doesn't take much to get me tired these days. I could be doing the same tasks I did before, only now, it takes everything out me. I'm exhausted to the core. Emotionally, I'm fine. Physically, I'm spent. I wonder if it'll always be like this... If it'll always take quadruple the strength to get through a day and all that it entails. When I woke up this morning, I thought "I survived." Survived yesterday.

What does it really mean, anyway, to survive? Surviving could seem more like a curse than an attribute at times. When the words "You are strong" were said to me, I'd almost gag. I was disgusted. Strong? Did I ever really choose to be strong? Merely existing was a betrayal in itself. So, to tell me that on top of existing I was "strong" and a "survivor" ...I was appalled.

But... I guess I am a survivor. Out of all things to survive from, I survive through this?! Did I know that I was capable of surviving such a reality? Hell no. But what shocks me, even now as I lay in my bed with a bleary view of my day, is that I am more... more than a survivor. I'm exhausted because I am living... breathing... prevailing. In those first few months, existing was more than I thought possible... More than what should have been asked of me. Still, there are days, sometimes weeks, when existing and "being" is all I can muster. Then there are mornings like now, when I can recognize the weeks that have past me by so quickly and why...

I'm grateful this morning. Grateful, for the chance to meet so many vigorous women who, in the face of their worst reality, do more than survive... unknowingly, they've inspired me to do the same.