Last week, another package came for me.

I knew that I would have to pick it up at the post office. I am ashamed to admit that I was afraid to go.

I was afraid to go to the Post Office because of what happened last time; I was afraid to go because I thought it might happen again.

It is very hard for me to admit that I am afraid of anything as I usually confront that kind of thing head on. I usually ignore the pain in my legs, my feet, tell myself not to be a baby and trudge on forward.

That’s what I did the last time I went to the Post Office; and look what happened then.

I woke up last Saturday and knew that I would have to take the buss to the post office. I knew that I would not be able to walk, that my legs felt the same way they did when I ended up shuffling along, barely able to walk.

It mollified me to admit I had to take a buss. I was embarrassed by this and somewhat humiliated. But after the last time, that last walk with Elephant Legs, it took a week for them to be alright again. It took a week for the pain to go away.

But it never completely goes away anymore.

The entire time I was getting ready, I kept telling myself that it was alright to take the buss, that it didn’t mean I was weak. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be ashamed, that I should be proud of myself for acknowledging my limits, for sticking within them.

But even now, a week later, it still stifles me; it still rankles. And it pisses me the hell off. Normally when I get pissed off, I do something about it, but this week has been difficult.

I have been in pain almost every day. At work, I concentrate so as not to show the pain in my face when my back spasms. I remember to tell myself not to make any noises or let sound escape from me when pain rips across my legs or shoulders.

I am ashamed to admit that perhaps there is nothing I can do, that my body will eventually win the war I have been fighting for almost thirty years.

But there is some compensation to take from all this. I was supposed to have died, to have passed away after a few breaths. I was not supposed to have lived. Thankfully I have proved that doctors can  in fact be wrong.

I will be thirty in August of this year. I have had thirty wonderful years and hope to live for sixty wonderful more. Though I am filled with pain I am also filled with hope. I wonder if one is not a product of the other.

For even though the pain humiliates me, shames me, limits me.

It lets me know I am alive and I am thankful.