For all of my adult life, seasons have been marked in current time & in memories with songs. Some people remember the foods they ate, the people they were with, but I always remember the songs I was listening to. The ones I blasted in the car on rough days when I felt like I had nothing left to cling to and the ones I blasted just as loud when I needed to be pumped up for a good day. I can hear a song randomly on the radio, or in the store, and I’ll have an instant flashback to a specific street I was driving on & the struggles I was facing at the time. This will come as no surprise to those who know I have song lyrics tattooed on my body, of the one song that carried me through MULTIPLE seasons and continues to do so.
So I guess it’s not surprising that halfway through 2020 & with another birthday having just passed, it’s become clear what that song is for me, right now. And I’ve decided to share my thoughts on it, since so many of us, maybe for the first time, are living this same season together.
For the last year of my life (almost literally, 358 days and counting) I’ve battled my worst uphill medical battle so far - a spontaneous CSF leak (though it wasn’t diagnosed until 4 months later). July 15,2019 is distinctly marked in my head as the last day I was truly pain free. I never in a million years thought I would pray to *only* have all of my OTHER medical problems, but that’s been the prayer for a year now. Please, God, just make this stop. Give me an answer. A cure. A miracle. Even ONE completely pain free day. Please. Anything.
Then: 2020 started. Fresh start? Nah, more like fires. COVID-19. Murder hornets. New words like “Social distancing” and “Quarantine”. In addition to all the implications this had on all of us, I also had to find a new way to navigate the ever-changing healthcare system and put many appointments and procedures on hold. Indefinitely.
On more occasion than one, I’ve felt like I’m in over my head. I’ve felt like I’m facing the ocean head on, trying to dodge incoming waves and learn a new normal, learn a different way to swim, only to find myself struggling to keep my head above the water at the end of each day.
If 2020 has made one thing abundantly clear to me, it’s that the struggles are not going to end anytime soon. The waters are not going to stop rising. The tide is not going to stop threatening to overtake me. The waves are not going to stop smacking me in the face and tossing me around, leaving me breathless and bruised. I want to believe that I could wake up tomorrow miraculously healed, with no need for further medical intervention, and while it may be possible, it’s certainly not a realistic plan. I want to believe that covid will be gone soon and that hugging my friends freely will be a reality again - but it’s not looking so good.
I don’t know yet if this song will be the one I remember 5 years from now when I think of 2020. I don’t know if I’ll find a new significant song next month or if this one will be stuck on repeat for years. Either way, I’m thankful for it today.
As the song goes:
“I’m reaching out,
I’ll chase you down,
I dare you to believe how much I love you now!
Don’t be afraid,
I am your strength,
We’ll be walking on the water
Dancing on the waves”
So maybe, in this season, instead of praying for no more waves, praying for the end of suffering for me & for so many others, maybe it’s time to pray that I can start learning to dance on those waves - the same ones that have threatened to overtake me & drown me. Less drowning, more dancing. Let the dance lessons begin.