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I'm Still Here



I'm still here.   My current battle cry is simply that, "I'm still here."  I only realized today that the mere fact of my still being here – here on Earth, here alive, here in my life, means something.  Now, what it means is debatable.  It could mean I am smart and have outwitted my foes and defeated the odds.  It could mean I am stupid and just don't realize I lost the game.  Or it could mean that I am just plain stubborn.  I don't give up.  I don't know, but I do know it means that I want to be here.

See, I believe that if people choose to die, they do.  I don't mean like suicides.  I mean when people give up.  They aren't here anymore.  We all know stories of people who were supposed to die and didn't or were fine and died or some variation. No explanation.  I remember when my mother was very ill with bone cancer.  She was doing okay and within 2 days of her being admitted to a long term care facility, she gave up and she was dead.  I saw her lose her will.  On the other hand, my grandmother lived years beyond what any doctor imagined.  She lived to be 99 years old.  In fact, she was one week from turning 100.  So the fact that I'm still here means I want to be.  I am hanging on. 

And I am hanging on because I am getting something out of this experience.  No matter how hopeless, hapless, or helpless I might feel, I am coming out ahead.  No matter how many panic attacks or meltdowns I might have, the sleep I lose worrying…none of that matters as much as the fact that I'm still here.  What is it I want to do, why am I here?  I don't mean in the grand existential way, but in the simple small details of life.  

I appreciate the fact that I am still here today, because it shows a determination, a persistence, a tenacious grasp of life.  Each day is filled with choices, opportunities, and experiences.  And I want to be here for them all.  I want to breathe in the peace of stopping to admire a beautiful flowering tree, the stretch of muscles in yoga, the thrill of skin being touched by a lover.   That is what life is and as long as I stay focused on those details, the overall picture loses it's power to diminish. 

My power today is that I'm still here.  Living.
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