There Is Only One You

Today I thought about what it meant to be me, and I realized that the overwhelming truth of who I am can be expressed in the idea that there is only one me. Perhaps that is for the better! Imagine a squadron or a flock of me... how exhausting it would be for those who love me to find so many of me needing attention, and how exasperating for those who dislike me... oh my!

The truth is there is at any one given point in time and space only one version of any one of us. Yes, truly, There Is Only One You, and Only One Me. No matter where we go, no matter what we do, no matter what we might think of ourselves, there exists only the one version of each of us. I asked myself what that might mean for me, living as I do with illness. 

Illness isn't something that is without variability, in fact many idiopathic illnesses have lives of their own, unraveling over time in the lives of individuals affecting two people with the same illness in very different ways. Two people with very similar backgrounds and lives might find themselves with Crohn's but the illness would not manifest itself in the same way in both their lives. Each individual is already unique in their own special way... add to that a disease that creates extra layers of uniqueness, and the individual is even more different, even more unusual, yet not quite special, as no one really wants to consider that having a disease could make you special. It doesn't really, it just makes you different.

That difference is to be thought of as being something precious, though, because it is a part of who you are. It sets you apart from others, a lot like the other things in your life would. Your experiences in life make you who you are to a large degree, and illness is very much experiential. It makes your life uniquely yours. It is only because we do not see that everyone else is also different in and of themselves that we despise the "different-ness" in ourselves. We imagine that all around us people are perfect and happy, and that we cannot be so because our lives are broken in some way by chronic illness. And yet if we were to sit and talk to these seemingly perfectly happy people we might find that they too have some pain in their lives, maybe not of the body but in their soul. They too may have something that they struggle with everyday of their lives. They also may be trying to keep up the facade of being in control but in all honesty, many of us have facades that we maintain so as to manage life on a daily basis. Who knows what lurks behind anybody's mask? Pain? Hurt? Loneliness? Sadness? Despair? We wonder why people try so hard to keep these masks on, but we know that this is the way of the world. No one can lower their mask and show their true selves to us unless they trust us enough to do so. And sometimes we ourselves do not know if we can take the brutal honesty that the other shows us, neither do we know if we have it in us to respond in an appropriate manner.

And so we all tiptoe around each other, dancing on edge, to a very old tune that dictates our movements. I show you a little bit of who I really am, perhaps you respond in like manner. We meet, two souls, passing by each other in life, exposed for who we really are. Trust is built. And somehow, something is said or done, and trust is broken. Then rebuilt again, then broken once more. And over and over goes this dance. But each time we keep coming back to rebuild the trust because we are driven by our humanity. We know instinctively that it is the right thing to do. We recognize this deep in our souls. We dance this dance back and forth with many people in our lives. The ones who mean a lot to us. The friends who can hurt us because we love them. The ones we cherish and want to keep close in our lives. The ones to whom we say, I know there is only one me, but a greater knowledge and a deeper truth I have found is that There Is Only One You. No matter what shape I am in, no matter what my life with illness may hold, stay in my life. I am more than just myself when I am with you, I am much, much, more. Together, There Will be Only One "Us".

Thanks for reading,

pav