am I becoming this?

The more I live these days, the more I discover what I'm losing.

You see, I have this crippling pain. Not from an accident, not from a fight, or a birth defect. It just decided to start one day. And recently, it's decided to get much worse.

I haven't always been healthy, more like the opposite, but I've always had a healthy frame of mind. When I was a kid, I'd get sick every other month or so, but I didn't let it bring me down. I didn't feel like I was cursed with some incurable disease. I just accepted the fact that I'm helping the Kleenex company sustain themselves in a rough economy, and didn't let it effect my life. I think developing that from when I was younger has become a really good thing. I'm not unwilling to do things, just because I'm not at my best. In fact, I assume that I'm going to be sick at any moment, and that state of being should be considered normal.

I think those thoughts make life right now a little more difficult. I keep thinking to myself, "this isn't really a big deal, I can still live life normally. I can still do everything I used to be able to, I'm just a little sick."
But I'm not just sick.
The more I try and do those "normal" things.. the more I realize that this isn't just a cold. This is something that entirely changes my life. I can't even stand up straight, walking exhausts me. At one point, even driving was difficult! But when I do those things, and when I struggle through them.. I don't think about it. I just push through it.

I've had more time to think lately. Thinking about what I used to be able to do.. and what I can't do now. I notice myself avoiding doing something I would've done easily back then, simply because it would hurt intolerably. And then I miss it. The more things I avoid doing because the pain is too much, the more pain I feel from not being able to do them. The thought of never being able to do them again.. can't even sink in. I can't even come to terms with that thought, although it looms more and more over my head each day.

I may not ever be able to run again. I may not even be able to stand up straight again. I can't look up at the stars... I can't hold my baby brothers like I used to. I can't help out around the house like I used to. All of my usefulness is disappearing daily. I'm no longer a help to my parents, but a hindrance. A burden. I never thought that I would be like this. I always thought that I was healthy. I can't even imagine being crippled like this for the rest of my life. I don't even want to think of what that life would be like. I still think of it like a little thing, belittling it in my mind as something that doesn't really effect my life.

And then I feel the pain. And then I try to stand up, but can't. And try to walk, but have to sit down.