Quick Update

Dear Friends,
 Thank you for inquiries as to why there has been a dearth of updates of late. There really is no great explanation. It was just boredom and avoidance for the most part. Boredom with continually finding myself too tired to do what I would like to do. Boredom with most of my conversations being about me (but again, if you want to know what's going on, please ask. I don't want anyone to feel this illness is a taboo subject. Just tell me what you've been up to as well). Boredom with needing to eat bland, soft foods at times to avoid indigestion. Boredom with trying to remember if I took my meds at 6 pm like I was supposed to or did I forget.

And the avoidance... well, in the last few days I've needed to come to terms again with the very real fact that this possibly means a reduction in my life expectancy and ongoing conditions for quite a while in the meantime. This is not going to be like a session with the flu, with a period of discomfort and then it's gone. I will probably at the very least be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering if our roommate is waiting to make a reappearance. And I didn't particularly want to look at this. But the gift of this roommate is that he is always there right now. No matter how hard I try, I am daily reminded that life is real, life is important, I need to find meaning in my life or my life will be meaningless. When I thought I had a good number of years of vitality ahead of me, a day or two frittered away didn't seem like much. But now...? It's not that I do much differently, but that the flavor of my life has changed. Even when surfing the web or watching the hummingbirds outside my window or playing a game on my ipod, there seems to be a soft voice in the background asking, "Where is the meaning in this?" I am finding the most meaningful moments, the times when that voice is silent and I say to myself, "Ahh! There it is!" are those I spend with friends and family and other people I meet, even when in silence.

Well, it is late and I still need to pack. I am going away tomorrow for a two week healing retreat in Ann Arbor, so there will be another gap in posts. But this time for a better reason.

Blessing on you all.