Reflection - Learning to Notice Life Again

The Simple Things:

I love spring.

Not just because the weather gets warmer or because everything starts coming back to life.

I love the little things.

My favourite cherry blossom tree coming into bloom.
Butterflies appearing around me.
The sound of the fantails.
The colours.
The smells.
The feeling that the world is waking up again.

These things might seem insignificant to someone else.

To me, they aren't.

Because there was a time when I was so deep in survival mode that I barely noticed any of it.

My body was struggling. My mind was exhausted. I was trying to understand what was happening to me while also trying to keep functioning through symptoms, pain, fear and uncertainty.

Life became about getting through the day.

Getting through the appointment.

Getting through the flare.

Getting through the exhaustion.

Getting through the next thing.

When you're living like that, you don't always have the capacity to notice the world around you.

You aren't stopping to smell the flowers.

You're trying to figure out how to make it through the day.

And that's something I've come to understand differently through my healing.

Healing hasn't meant that everything suddenly became easy.

I still have difficult days.

I still have symptoms that can knock me sideways. I still have moments where my body feels like it's working against me. I still have days where I need to retreat, rest and reduce the noise around me.

But something has changed.

I notice things now.

• I notice the blossom.

• I notice the birds.

• I notice butterflies.

• I notice the warmth of the sun on my skin.

• I notice the smell of the air after rain.

• I notice a beautiful sunrise.

• I notice my coffee.

• I notice the ocean.

• I notice those tiny moments where my body isn't demanding all of my attention.

And honestly, sometimes those moments feel huge.

Because after spending so long surviving, being able to pause and actually feel grateful to be here is not something I take lightly.

Healing isn't always a breakthrough

We often talk about healing as though it has to be some huge transformation.

A breakthrough.

A massive realisation.

A moment where everything suddenly makes sense.

But my healing has been much messier than that.

Sometimes healing is lying in a dark room because your nervous system has had enough.

Sometimes it's choosing rest without feeling guilty.

Sometimes it's going for a walk even though movement feels hard.

Sometimes it's sitting outside with a coffee and listening to the birds.

Sometimes it's laughing with someone you love.

Sometimes it's noticing that you're having a better moment and allowing yourself to actually enjoy it instead of waiting for something to go wrong.

And sometimes it's simply standing underneath a cherry blossom tree thinking:

I'm still here.

That matters.

I don't want to rush past the good moments anymore

For years, I was focused on what was wrong.

What hurt.

What I couldn't do.

What I had lost.

What needed fixing.

And when you're dealing with chronic illness and a body that can change from one day to the next, it's easy to become consumed by it.

But I don't want my entire life to become about symptoms.

They are part of my life.

They are not all of it.

There is still beauty here.

There is still laughter.

There are still people I love.

There are still places that make me feel grounded.

There are still sunsets, beaches, birds, coffee, music, butterflies and bloody beautiful cherry blossoms.

And I'm learning to let those things matter too.

Not as a way of pretending the hard stuff doesn't exist.

But because the hard stuff doesn't deserve to take every beautiful moment from me.

Maybe this is part of healing too

Maybe healing isn't about becoming the person I was before everything happened.

Maybe it's about becoming someone who can hold both.

The difficult days and the beautiful ones.

The symptoms and the moments of peace.

The grief and the gratitude.

The exhaustion and the joy.

The reality of chronic illness and the reality that there is still a life here worth experiencing.

I don't need to be completely healed to appreciate my life.

I don't need to have everything figured out.

I don't need to pretend I'm okay when I'm not.

I can be struggling and still notice the butterfly.

I can be exhausted and still be grateful for the sunrise.

I can have a flare and still find something beautiful in the day.

That's what these simple moments have started to mean to me.

They remind me that I am not just a body full of symptoms.

I am a person living a life.

And after everything I've been through, I don't want to sleepwalk through that life anymore.

I want to notice it.

Feel it.

Experience it.

Even the tiny pieces.

Especially the tiny pieces.

Because sometimes the simple things aren't really simple at all.

Sometimes they are the little reminders that you've made it through more than you thought you could.

And you're still here.

Still becoming.

Still living.

Still finding your way back to yourself.

And maybe that's healing too.