My Closet

Ten.......nine......eight.......seven........six........five.......four.......three.........two.......one............ready or not here I come!!!!!!!!!! My breath is held so tight because I know if I let out the smallest of breath my friends will find me and I will be it!!!!!!! So....I must......hold......my breath. I FOUND YOU!!!!!!! Finally I could burst out of my closet I had been hiding in!!!!!! Those dark corners were getting awful deep in there and that scarf really was reaching for me !!!!!! Dark closets are the best hiding places when you are playing but one of the darkest, scariest and most solitude places you could find yourself in at age six. Who knew that for the rest of our lives we would all be hiding and running in and out of closets when the coast was clear. 

When you are a younger you really truly struggle to find who you are. You surround yourself with people who you like in hopes that maybe, just maybe a little bit of their outgoing personality, their ability to get amazing grades or their strong sense of style will smudge off on you......you know, just a bit. You start to build yourself up with tiny blocks that have been influenced by the world around you. Some of the influences are wonderful and beautiful and some can be scary and not so nice. But in the end, it is all of those building blocks and all of those experiences that add up and make you who you are today. No matter what YOU see when you look inside of yourself someone else will see uninterrupted raw beauty that has taken form inside your soul.

Tim and I met through a mutual friend. We had both left relationships that were not right and we were looking to just have fun and experience life but what happened was that we experienced each other. We found true friendship on dirt roads and a growing admiration for one another on top of mountains between bites of a hamburger and very gross beer! Regardless, we found each other while searching for ourselves. 

I knew Tim was special from the beginning. He made me laugh all the time and the moments of silence between us were so comfortable and never had an uneasiness about them. We tried to force ourselves to eat dinner at our own houses but we always found an excuse to see each other every single day. One thing that Tim did not know was that I was hiding in a closet of my own. I had Lupus. I had met someone amazing and now I had to take the person he saw and mark her up with the truth of my life. I knew if I wanted to keep someone so special in my life my secret would have to be shared and I would have to emerge out of the dark closet and leave the scarf that I swore reached for behind me once again. 

It was a normal moment in a normal day. Tim was getting ready for work and I was all ready myself. I went into the bathroom, sat down and blurted out to Tim that I had Lupus. I was sick and I would always be sick. I explained to him that my immune system is sooooooooooo active that it can not fight the common cold that my body runs into because it is to busy fighting itself. I went on to tell him how my Lupus at that time was attaching my joints, muscles, brain and lungs. It could possibly attach other organs in the future or it could decide to give me a break. He took it all in and asked very few questions and we went our separate ways for the remaining part of the day. That was the longest day of my life. I had just told my best friend and someone who I could possibly love that the person they saw everyday was flawed in a way that could never be fixed. My heart ached at the thought of this being to much for Tim and my stomach turned over just wondering what he could be thinking. Finally towards the end of the day Tim called and asked what I wanted to do for dinner. 

I was terrified to share the hardest thing I had to go through in my life because I was so insecure with it myself. I put up walls, built a ceiling and boxed myself in. I was afraid to share something that was scary to me and I was terrified that someone else would not accept something that I had obviously not accepted myself. I had no idea that by sharing my Lupus with Tim would allow me to share my story with the world. I have learned over the years that disease does not define me, what defines me is how I handle my disease. There are hard days and days I cry but there are also beautiful days that are filled with smiles. I have learned that I am not damaged, I am special. I am not ugly when my hair falls out but even more beautiful because you can see me more clearly. Through the pain and tears there is joy and laughter. Time is not something that passes so quickly but is something that I have earned with grace. For me life is love and tomorrow may not be promised but today is.