Today is day 17 of the Migraine and Headache Awareness Month Blog Challenge #MCAMBC #NDPH
The writing prompt today is this picture and the quote "Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams." - S.A. Sachs.
Oh yes it does. That is exactly where my hope comes from. It is a beautiful picture of what has to happen. You have to rummage through the debris of your old life to find the small bits that can be saved and turned into something new. It's the most organic kind of recycling. But it's painful. Because the unusable bits have to be buried.
I had a long mourning period for the old Megan. I didn't know that's what I was doing until I'd reached the end of it. I didn't know the name for the keening loss that kept building inside me every day and then spilling out over my life like toxic sludge. My book talks a lot about this, the grieving. It has to be done. It will kill you if you don't do it. You have to rise like a yucky baby Fawkes out of the ashes of the old you. You have to.
It honestly took me about a year. I don't exactly know when it started and I don't know exactly when it ended. I'd been hiding my feelings from myself. I do remember when the feelings of peace came. It was so startling and unexpected that I didn't even recognize it at first. I didn't understand why I felt more cheerful on bad days.
Sheila was the one to name it. She had come to visit so she could go to my new dr with me. This was when I got diagnosed with NDPH. But even before that Sheila noticed that I was different. Over the previous years I'd slowly turned bitter and I'd lost my softness. So I'm sure that my new acceptance was a stark change easily seen from the outside. She saw the new lights shining through me that even I didn't have names for. She named them Hope and Peace. And that's what it was. I'd finally accepted it. I'd grieved what was lost and had finally moved past it to what was next. My hope was not for a cure from my headaches but for the great life I was going to have despite them. My peace was not the world's peace but God's peace. Somedays I still slide back into the depths but rarely. I don't live down there anymore. I am a new Fawkes made up of the strongest, bravest part of me. Amen. God is good isn't He?
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