Last night as Slappy and I were driving home from the gym, we saw the most gorgeous sunset. I kicked myself for not having a camera to capture the pink and blue that swirled across the clouds. I knew there was no way I’d really remember the way it looked. The way it seemed like if you really wanted to, you could reach out and scoop a handful of the color right out of the sky.

Since we were driving west, we drove towards the brightly colored sky all the way home. By the time I finally grabbed my camera, ready to document the beauty, it was gone. It was just a figment of my memory, the pinks and blues that had danced before us.

Tomorrow morning, I go back to school. My vacation, my break, has faded before my eyes like that sunset.

I had high hopes for this vacation, because I’m nothing if not freaking awesome at setting myself up for disappointment. I had hoped that in the 4 weeks off, we’d figure out the headache. I thought that I might do some work so that I was refreshed on my knowledge of all the stuff I was supposed to know last semester. I imagined that I might get my sleep regulated and come back relaxed and rested.

I wanted a clean slate for this new semester. I wanted to come back refreshed, refocused and pain free.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

The headache has not been solved, studying has not been done and sleep is unsteady and unpredictable.

I am not beginning this new semester with a clean slate. I’m already scheduled to miss the first Friday of the semester for the myelogram, which involves another lumbar puncture, meaning that at best will lay me out for the weekend, at worst until I get another needle shoved into my back for blood patch.

And I know that I’ve perhaps been a little better about keeping my chin up, but I just don’t see this test being the answer. I see this test being the test that finally convinces everyone that there’s nothing to do. I see this test being the true end to all of this. Which, I guess might seem like a good thing, but it’s hard to see the good in giving up.

I hesitate to say that I truly looked forward to going back to school this semester, but I had hopes that it would be different. I had the hope that I’d get to experience a semester like all of my classmates. Where problems arose but they were normal, predictable even. Where the only days of class I missed were from colds or viruses that needed extra sleep and chicken noodle soup. Where I didn’t have to try to focus despite what I feel I can really call never-ending pain.

Perhaps it makes me greedy, wanting all of that. I have so many great things in my life already, to want everything is wrong. But how could I not? How can I pretend that after 161 days of constant pain that I don’t want even just a day without it? I do want that. I want it to my very core. I want it so badly it hurts. Just 24 hours of pain free normalcy. I would give almost anything for that.

But I have nothing to give, nothing to offer for that reward.

Instead I choose to live this life, despite the pain. I will choose to get up tomorrow morning, go to school and keep my chin up. I will choose to remember the wonderful parts of this month off and forget the days spent in bed in pain. I will choose to see the opportunities that lay ahead instead of the obvious barriers that seek to stop me.

I will choose to find the good, even when it has faded into darkness. Even when it is just a memory.

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