The Return: A Beginning

 It is the year 2020, the best of times in the last decade for me, a bad time for humans in the new millennium.

I got a transplant, something that I have been waiting for, not so patiently and with increasing panic, trepidation, and urgency, for over a decade. I have been grateful for the support of my patient friends & family, my wonderful tutors, my thoughtful colleagues, and my accommodating supervisor for making it possible to return to my job after a just week off in the hospital. We all have been working remotely for many weeks already. 

Yes, this is the year that Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (or COVID-19 for short) went global, hitting all continents, all economies, and all populations. We have been confined to our homes, which has been a blessing for me, given my newly over-compromised immune system. I have been able to keep in touch and get tasks done while I recovered. 

While I am grateful for the peculiar circumstances that have allowed me to avoid a long recuperative leave, the very same circumstances have forced my child to travel 80 miles to pick me up and drop me off. I had to uproot myself from my comfort zone, kicking, screaming, under loud protests, and move in with my kind, patient family. I had already lost my night sleep, and missing my own bed made it impossible for me to stay asleep for longer than a few minutes. For weeks after I was returned home, I was convinced that the gods had abandoned me. More problematically, I was convinced that my body had abandoned me, leaving me frustrated, floundering, and flakey, unlike the person the people who love me remembered, changed into a being whom they did not recognize or have much patience with. 

Now, I am mostly healed from everything (almost). I do have to keep going for labs to ensure that things remain healed, but I feel better than I have in over a decade. I did not realize that kidneys can make such a huge difference in one's life. I am slowly returning to myself. 

In many ways, this process of returning to myself has been similar to returning to my burnt house once it was rebuilt.

I am finding out that there is a specific process involved in this returning to the self. First, the process started within: the constant pain and discomfort diminished slowly but increasingly, with a determination that I did not know my body possessed. Once the pain diminished, I began recognizing myself in the mirror and smiling in recognition of someone I had forgotten about. Once I recognized myself, I began the very long, painful process of forgiving my body. By now, I wear my scars with pride. There is ways to go yet before I can wear earrings and indulge in face packs. However, one more thing I have been working on is patience. I give myself a break: I start work early enough so that I can take brief  breaks for naps, snacks, even a quick face time with my family. 

I wonder how long this process will take. I long to quilt like I used to, write like I used to. This entry is the first step towards this completion. Just the fact that I look forward to a completion is proof of the thing with feathers that has woken up and fluttered its feathers, wonderingly looked around with disused, myopic eyes, not quite believing that such a world can exist..