Seiya and I sat in the office. So many thoughts were going through my head – most prominently about how getting my Bachelor’s and then Master’s I thought I was doing everything to avoid this scene, but here I was. Why couldn’t I shake off this chronic dizziness and back pain? Why couldn’t the good diet I’d been reallvery my working on help my stomach not feel pain every moment of every day?
But here I was in the Food Stamp office. Seiya quietly filled out his form. Politely asking questions as he encountered them. I wondered how my life may have been different had I chosen to take a different road. What if I had stayed the year in Korea and had money to start a new life when I’d moved home? Where would I have gone? What would I have done? What if I had not moved back to Boston after my summer in Maine and had pursued a career in camping as I had dreamed? What if I had not gotten in the car with my sister the day we had an accident that may have set my migraines into motion? Would I be sick? Would I not be able to work not? Would I be sitting here filling out Food Stamp forms? Would I be starting the process of getting disability?
But as I watched Seiya I thought about how not long after I had gotten sick God (or fate or whatever you choose to call it) had brought the most loving and supportive man into my life. A man who had seen me at my worst and chosen to love me anyway. A man that sometimes accepts me as I am more than I accept myself. At least if I was going down this road, I wasn’t having to journey it alone.
Laughing Through Chronic Illness 