On The Inside Looking Out

I feel like I spend so much of my life on the inside looking out.

I sit here in these three rooms in our little apartment we call our home and I look out our two windows. I wonder about people. I look at the clouds that I love so much. I watch dogs. I see birds flying. The sky is always there every day still. It hasn’t fallen yet. You never know. It could any day now. It is 2020.

Anyway, the past couple of years my body has told me what to do. I have been dealing with a diagnosis of Lyme Disease and Co-Infections, including Bartonella and Babesia, and the treatments have demanded all of my attention. They had made me hypersensitive to everything to a point where I couldn’t do anything without feeling vertigo and acute nausea and almost vomiting unless I kept my life very slow and basic. I have had to spend so much time at home and not do much of anything, but watch my surroundings. I have since been improving little bit by little bit, which is why I am able to write some more, but I never know when it will hit again. I have a feeling I will get more into that in another post. During this time of trying to kick lyme disease’s butt I have been on the inside looking out.

And then the pandemic hit. And I’m immune-compromised. I have to be so careful where I take this crazy immune system of mine because it needs a lot of help and support and this virus is so contagious. My doctor who I trust more than most people these days does not want me to go out if I can help it. The reason being that if I do go out and I catch this virus, it will probably hit me very hard, I will likely be on a ventilator and I will probably die. This might be difficult to read. You might even want to deny it. I know I have. It’s kinda hard to write, but dammit I’m here to tell the truth. It’s a rough one to face and one many of us who are immune-compromised have to deal with. However, it doesn’t mean that we should be kept quiet and in the corner either which is why I will be speaking up more. I’m here to give us all a voice. And I stand here, I sit here, I walk up to the two windows, and I stay on the inside looking out, wondering when the world will pause just a bit more so that the virus doesn’t have so much freedom.

So I watch people go out all the time and I dream of doing that myself now that I actually feel up to doing it a bit for the first time in years…and I can’t go out unless I absolutely have to. We live next door to CVS and Trader Joe’s and I used to at least take little jaunts there before my lyme disease treatments when my body would let me. I really thought that I would be able to do that again this year before March when the pandemic hit, and as I was starting to feel my body let up on me a smidge and nope. I can’t. It’s not safe for me. People are not keeping their distance. They’re not wearing masks. They’re not staying home to stop the spread. I want to go for a walk. There’s lots of people walking. They all seem to have different ideas of when to wear masks and when not to wear them. I could go on.

Thinking back on 18 years ago, I was admitted to the hospital because they thought I had a brain tumor or something just as serious (thus began my health journey that I am still on today). I can remember standing in that room at the window and looking out. It was right around the time when day started changing to night and I could feel my life and my world shifting. I wondered if it was that I felt like a caged animal, but then I knew that wasn’t it. Those poor souls didn’t have the choice to escape. I could have left the room and the hospital if I wanted to. If I remember correctly, I didn’t even have an IV in my arm and I wasn’t hooked up to anything. I think they were just “observing” me at the time, whatever that meant.  There I was, with the back light of the lamp in my room, barely able to see the reflection of uncertainty on my face on top of my silhouette, as I stood there on the inside looking out. I still can’t answer myself about what that feeling was, except to say that my intuition was kicking in and I knew my life as I knew it was changing forever.

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So that’s where I am right now. I’m really feeling like I’m on the inside looking out and that is why I have changed the Overall Title of my Blog to “Nahleen.com: On The Inside Looking Out”. I have a lot to share and I hope you will continue reading as I write more posts. Thank you!