Health Writer's Month: Facing the Wolf - Alone

Today's topic is: Health Activist Choice Day 2! Write about whatever you like.

I'm having coffee tonight, with my ex-boyfriend. That's got me thinking, OK crying, about what I'm missing out on. That's not particularly about that relationship, which failed as some relationships do, but for what I had been looking for when I set out on that relationship.

When I put my profile on the dating site where I met Mr Wonderful, I knew I had lupus. I was relatively well, but I knew that things wouldn't always be that way.

I was looking for something very specific and very permanent. I wanted marriage, but not like the one I'd already had. I wanted someone to share my life with - the good and the bad.  I wanted someone I could plan with, someone I could discuss decisions with, someone I could always count on. I wanted someone who would love me in spite of my condition.

I wanted someone who, on the days when I have the clumsies and drop things constantly or walk into walls, on the days when I have brain fog and don't remember why I have car keys in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other, on the days when I'm in too much pain to get out of bed, would just hold me and tell me it's going to be all right - we'll get through it together.

I wanted someone to face the wolf with me.

I never expected it would all be one-way. Even on my worst days, I would hope I have something worthwhile in me to bring to a relationship.

Now I'm sick. I don't have the energy to look for someone to share my life with.  I'm in too much pain to go through the effort of getting to know someone new.

It's not that I'm completely alone. My (now adult) kids have been amazing in supporting me. So have my friends and my church family. The on-line lupus community does wonders to help keep me sane, and keep the challenges of life with this disease in perspective.

But at the end of the day, no-one comes home to me just because they chose to be with me. The kids will finish uni, and they will go on to have lives of their own.

I will live alone.

Then it will just be me....and the wolf.

This post is part of Wego Health's Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge.


If you like my lupus wolf - you can get him on shirts, mugs, etc from irisshirtshop.toctopus.com