"Still crazy...."

Still crazy...
I have been trying to become  accustomed to a sort of "new normal" since I was diagnosed with  COPD stage 4 (severe lung disease) in 2007. 26 years of diagnosed COPD. I try to accept it and I just want to continue to engage in the new normal activity levels I have learned to be accustomed to. I had Lung Volune Reduction (both lungs) exactly three years ago, July 1, 2020. Right in the middle of the COVID lockdown (maybe more later). Now, indictions are that I am experiencing a returning loss in capacity for physical activity. The experience is eating away at my peace of mind. I wonder what the increasing shortness of breath I am noticing portends for the immediate future and, importantly, is it still in my power to combat the decline.  It's tiring work  curbing the inevitability of a grave illness. The need to hope for super-human ability to stand and face the inevitable can lead to a malaise that comes from the certain knowledge that one is only staring down, not stopping what is indeed a death sentence. It seems not to matter that none of us is getting out of here alive; my situation begins to feel uniquely dire and hopeless. It's not...dire and hopeless, or unique. It is terminal. From this cunundrum comes at least some of the craziness.  Dire and hopeless kind of exemplify terminal conditions from a superficial point of view. But it's really a control thing. I NEED to be in control! I'm NOT in control of COPD  What's not dire and hopeless about that? Once upon a time, I would maybe get sick or hurt or something: I would get whatever; I would get a doctor's help if I needed it; I would get over the whatever and I would get well. Reality Check...new normal.

Here come the aphorisms:  You are not your disease. Life is a terminal condition. Take it to God. Be the best you that you can be. and on, and on. I really try not to carry the aphorism water to benched athletes. 

So what do I think is appropriate behavior in this situation? Well, it seems I am making another attempt to write  a blog no one ever reads, or even knows about. Yep, still crazy.  But the saving grace in this activity is that the writing itself reminds me that how I feel is not who I am any more than having COPD defines me.  

I am defined by what choices I make in the situations I face each day. My merit may be fluid, but my worth, my value, is cast in stone by my existence.  My value deserves that I  acknowledge and accept it. By thinking "on the record" I remind myself to live up to that infinite value. I remember a saying that since now is the only moment we are given in which to act, we are right to call it the "present."

This means that it is my activity: physical training, diet, good judgment and kindness; and attitude: shaking off fear, trying again and again to do what needs doing, thinking of others, that counts. It's  to not aptitude: inate ability, health, or strength; that count as my scores each and every day. One other thing: I am not the scorekeeper of record. I am blessedly evaluated for any legitimate judgment by a more generous spirit than I will ever possess.

I don't pretend to understand how  I what believe to be true really operates. . I only think I ought to pay attention and open my heart and mind to the dawn of a new day once in a while. My thinking often needs dragged out of circular craziness. Writing thoughts down to publish them is an exercise in accountability, if nothing else.

So, thanks for stopping to read this. My earlier baby step posts into the blogasphere seem to be locked. My only hope is that this attempt at Breathe Easy will help me be available to anyone who wants me to be there, including me.  Eighteen years without a thoughtless breath. Dang.