when enjoying life is the hardest thing you can do now

137 days since my body first met the drugs flowing through my veins. adriamycin. bleomycin. vinblastine. dacarbazine. once, they were nothing more than alien names to me.

since then, i’ve had to learn my body all over again. some mornings, i wake up tired, uncomfortable, confused, or simply not feeling like myself.

now even my sense of taste has started to change, leaving everything with this bitter, metallic taste in my mouth. it sounds like such a small thing, but when the bitterness follows you through every meal, every drink, every attempt to enjoy something you used to like, it becomes another reminder that my body no longer works the way it used to.

all these years, i’ve become really good at finding meaning in small things. making breakfast. watching the moon. washing a bowl. i do find meaning in them. i really do. but i also want to be honest about the other side of it. there are days when i don’t.

there are days when the moon is just the moon. food is just food. getting out of bed feels like a punishment. on those days, the idea of enjoying life can feel like another thing i’m expected to perform.

loving life feels natural when life gives you enough reasons to love it. it becomes much harder when things are otherwise.

that was when i realised i didn’t need to love every part of my life. i just needed to stay connected to it. i wasn’t always looking for happiness or trying to convince myself that everything was okay.

i was just trying not to shut down completely.

i focused on whatever was directly in front of me. i started asking myself very simple questions: what can i do right now? can i wash this bowl? can i make breakfast? can i take a shower? can i step outside? can i just breathe?

huh. just this moment.

i only needed to decide what came next. and by “next,” i mean the next five minutes.

there were days when my body felt completely unfamiliar. i didn’t understand why i was so tired or why things that used to take almost no effort suddenly felt like work.

staying in bed felt easier. shutting everyone out felt easier. but i knew i needed something that could bring me back to the present. so i started paying attention to things i could physically feel. holding a warm cup of tea between my hands. standing barefoot on the floor. opening the fridge door and feeling the coldness against my face.

these things didn’t change anything about my situation, nor making me feel better immediately. they simply reminded me that i was still here. my body was still here. the world was still moving even when i felt like i had stopped.

a friend reminded me about tartil; about slowing down, being deliberate, and giving each thing its proper space.

we are constantly told to move faster. recover faster. achieve faster. figure everything out. but some things cannot be rushed. prophet Nuh spent 950 years calling his people and still had very few followers. a hadith also tells us that some prophets will come on the day of judgment with only one or two followers, and some with none. if we measured their lives only by visible results, we might call them unsuccessful. but that was never the measure. their responsibility was to keep showing up and do what they were entrusted to do.

i think about that a lot. i don’t have to graduate on time. i don’t have to rush up the career ladder. i don’t have to get married before 35. life doesn’t have to happen according to the timeline i had in my head.

gratitude can exist right beside pain. i can be worried about my future and still enjoy the morning air. i can be tired and still notice the sky. i can be disappointed with my life and still laugh at something someone says. i can sit in front of a meal that tastes completely bitter and still appreciate the fact that i have something to eat. appreciating something good doesn’t erase what hurts. there can be bitterness on my tongue and beauty in the sky at the same time. both things can be true.

eventually, i stopped looking for one big reason to keep going. i started giving more importance to small actions instead. ways of telling myself, i am still participating in my own life.

i don’t have to love what is happening to me. i don’t have to understand it either. i can be tired of this. i can miss the life i thought i would have. i can admit that this is not what i wanted and still choose to stay close to the life i have now.

i’m a little lamb lost in the woods, learning that being lost doesn’t mean i have to stop walking. for now, enjoying life simply means refusing to hate or abandon the life i’m living.