You are more than the broken piece of you

I am more than  chronic illness. I am more than fibromyalgia. I am more than my broken pieces.

Lately, I’ve felt more and more drawn to the idea of removing chronic illness from my identity all together.

Will I still have chronic illness? Yes. It’s chronic after all.

But, that doesn’t mean it has to be part of my identity. It’s not how I introduce myself.

Sometimes I even struggle with the idea that living with chronic illness is what my blog is about, as if by telling someone that I am saying that that’s all I am, or that it’s somehow the most important piece of me.

Consciously embrace the fact that you are more than the one broken piece of you. – MarcandAngel.com

I love Marc and Angel Hack Life. If you don’t read it, you should. This one line on a recent post from them really stood out to me, because I felt it is so applicable to those of us with chronic illness. So often, we forget who we are and get mired in our illness. We lose our identity and begin to identify ourselves as nothing more than someone who is sick. The reality is there is still so much more to us.

When I talk to others about blogging, I always tell them to choose a topic they are passionate about. I am passionate about being more than my illness. I am passionate about living a happy, positive life despite whatever stumbling blocks get in my way. I hope that comes through in what I write.

When I first got ill there was a lot to me. So much I enjoyed doing, so often that I got out and enjoyed life. Then, the longer I was sick the more of my life got chipped away, until I was nothing but a shell laying on the couch, wishing I was dead.

When I finally found a way to regain my life I noticed that the more life I regained the further I moved from identifying myself as chronically ill. My blog focus shifted from talking about my illness and what I do to help myself feel better, to talking about living well and living positively in general.

I still have bad days, but I don’t really want to talk about them. I want to minimize them. I want to focus on the good days. I want to focus on being happy and positive. As a result I’ve made a lot of decisions in the last few years to remove negativity from my life, whether it’s jobs that drain my energy, or people who bring me down.

These days I’m trying to figure out who I am again, how I fit into the bigger picture, and how all my pieces fit together. My goal is to find the pieces and then eventually see the whole me, rather than a bunch of pieces. Those pieces aren’t me. I am not chronic illness.

I am a woman who loves to help others, who loves to laugh, spend time with friends, write, read, play poker, paint, travel, drink wine, and who constantly strives to improve herself in any way possible.

I am a woman who has learned to listen to her body, to rest when necessary, and to play and work hard the rest of the time. I am a woman with ideas that I must act on.

I am a woman with many talents and skills that must be used to the best of my ability. I also just happen to have two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, and a handful of chronic illnesses.

You are more than your broken pieces, also. You are more than your illness.

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