Survival

I look at some of the people I know who are living with HIV, with AIDS, with cancer, who live with these and other life-threatening illnesses and situations, and I want to say to them:

You're a survivor.

You're tougher than you ever imagined you were, or needed to be. You've proven yourself to be tougher than you thought by your quiet action of living through what has killed so many others. You might not feel like a hero, but you are.

Maybe that's small comfort, some days, yet it's what gets us through. The difference between a hero and a coward is that a hero runs towards the battle, not away from it. Think about that, on those darkest of days.


Adam, from Spiral Dance

I've had some serious dark days myself, and I have had been down some similar roads. I've come close to my personal extinction, and I live with a (non-AIDS) permanent chronic illness, that takes a huge toll on my lifeforce and energy. Comparisons don't really matter, though. What matters is that we survive, and live, and thrive. Sod anybody who tries to pull you down to their sordid and sorrowful level. Those who try to drag you down do so because they can't stand being reminded that someone might get out of the black hole they call home. They've forgotten a really important lesson:

Why do we fall?
To learn to pick ourselves up again.


Beach Prayer (2005)