The Involuntary Pause
What Chronic Illness Can Teach Us
On the second of three days we planned to spend in Yellowstone National Park, the boys and I left behind our list of places we had yet to see and bailed. Henry had a stomachache. Elvis was irritable. The easily agitated Wizard behind the curtain of my nervous system began screaming and beating against my skull around 2 p.m. and didn’t stop until my head hit the pillow in our (unplanned stay at a) roadside, air-conditioned cabin.
This was not the experience in Yellowstone I had planned.
So much about my life has not gone according to plan—ever, but especially since 2020, when long-COVID turned into POTS, a chronic illness of the autonomic nervous system.
And, you guys, I love plans! Plans are the best! Who doesn’t love a perfectly outlined itinerary with clear departure and arrival times, no delays, meals catered according to your tastes, restful nights, sunny days, happy children, perfect health? Who doesn’t love the planned life?
My long-COVID journey disrupted everything, beginning with resigning from my full-time job and continuing its toddler-like tantrums from 2020 to Yellowstone, all the way to the present day. Every time I think I’ve fully recovered from POTS, some new and alarming symptom will throw itself onto the floor screaming for attention.
Rest! It demands. You must stop what you’re doing, you must leave, you must set down your expectations and tend to the angry Wizard behind the curtain. You have no other option.
It’s frustrating. But it’s also been one of the greatest gifts of my adult life.
I wouldn’t wish chronic illnesses on anyone, because suffering sucks. However, since it is the universal human experience, if you’re going to get a chronic illness, let it be your teacher. Suffering, after all, is the way of the cross. And on the other side is resurrection life. My illness stripped away the false notions I had about earning my worth, where I place my value, who I trust to provide for me, and what matters most. It dramatically realigned my priorities.
I have been burdened with unpredicted flareups of POTS symptoms in the last few weeks. After my frustration that I am yet again dealing with occasional brain fog, fatigue, headaches, and dizziness, the forced slow-down gives me space to pause and remember: although I am not well, it is well.
Chronic illness can be a spiritual re-education.
It isn’t always. Some days, it is just disappointing, grievous, frustrating, unjust.
But other times, in the open space provided by slowness, when I let it, my eyes are opened to see what’s always been true—the elegant dance of elements, the reciprocity of trees breathing so we can breathe so they can breathe, the way all life requires sacrifice to keep flourishing, the beauty in every living and nonliving thing—you can’t see it when you’re flying along the highway at the rate of health.
Although I am not well, it is well.
Maybe this wasn’t the Plan, but it sure has been a gift.
I talk about this more in To Say One Million Times, Wow! which will enter the world this coming Tuesday, March 24. It’s available for pre-order on Bookshop and Amazon. Please add it to your Goodreads to-read list as well! More fun book news to come!