The grass is greener where you water it.

I love the saying ‘the grass is greener where you water it’. If you would have asked me five years ago to define it, I would have said it means that you should invest your romantic energy in your partner instead of putting it towards someone outside of your relationship while complaining that your current relationship isn’t ‘all that’ anymore. It wasn’t long into my illness when I started to see new meaning in the saying. When you’re housebound, with no income, and most everyone has faded away, you really must dig deeply to look for your own happiness, to ‘keep your grass green’ instead of simply wishing you had what others have.

Since joining in with chronic illness communities online I’ve learned through others what the true definition of strength, perseverance, and absolute admiration look like, people who are absolutely fighting for their own little patch of green grass every single day. I used to say my mom was the strongest person I’ve ever known, and honestly that may still be true, but boy there are some close runners up out there. People who just keep pushing through the adversity, the mistreatment, the misdiagnoses, the pain, the suffering. Despite it all, they wake up everyday and they tackle it , they face the fragility of their bodies with a grace that you can’t help but admire.

Chronic illness doesn’t care how old you are, or how much money you make, it doesn’t care if you have family or friends, it doesn’t care if you are happy or sad. And it certainly doesn’t care if you lose all of that. All it selfishly cares about is keeping you ill. I’m not going to lie to you and say that making sure you’re watering your own grass before you complain someone else has greener grass than you is easy. It’s not. In fact, what is easy is to feel left behind as other people go on with their lives. But it’s worth it to try, try to feed your own soul, to find the thing or things that make you happy. The next time you catch yourself wishing for something someone else has maybe try and ask yourself what can I do to make this a better moment for me. How can I shed some self-compassion on this situation? Again, doesn’t always work, lets face it somedays are ROUGH, but I encourage you to keep trying to find that silver lining. With that I’ll close with another of my favorite sayings, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” (Victor Hugo) That one is absolutely true…I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Thank you for stopping by folks! Hoping today is as kind to you as it possibly can be and that you find your own little slice of happy somewhere in the day. 🌼 A few more of my little doodles. 😊