Every morning, I sit down with a cup of coffee, a warm blanket, a collection of inspirational books, my journal, and see where things go. Last Saturday, I picked up The Promise of a New Day: A Book of Daily Meditations, by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg. I came across what has become one of my favorite quotes, “Living well is the best revenge” (Anonymous).  I’d like to meet this “Anonymous” …he/she comes up with some good ones! Anyway…

The reading went on to talk about how ill will and negativity toward another always returns to us. I know this. My anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeful feelings have always returned to me one way or another. A hard lesson, and one learned, and relearned, with time and life experience. What really jumped off the page at me as I read was how objects of our focus, our obsessions, can gradually control our every move. “Giving over our power to those we resent…[we] forsake the steps toward our personal goals.” 

Does it have to be “those we resent”?  Why not a thing?  I thought about my Meniere’s Disease.  How I can find myself thinking about it so much.  It can consume us…we obsess!  It can take the wheel and control our every move throughout the day. I’m very fortunate that my symptoms are, to me it seems, mild compared to others, to the point I sometimes wonder if I’ve been misdiagnosed…again. And then, there are times when I'm completely sideways with this thing.  Like this summer, when for nearly a month, I’d wake up feeling good, and within 30 minutes my symptoms would hit. Every. Single. Day.  Well, rest assured, episodic vertigo, dizziness, hearing loss and the constant ringing of tinnitus tell me, yes, it’s an accurate diagnosis. 

How many times have I completely succumbed? “…Given over our power to those [that thing] we resent…forsaking steps toward our personal goals…” Are we sometimes completely taken over not only by our physical, but the emotional/mental? Are we so completely exhausted that we wave the white flag? Does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy? 

Yes, the symptoms are annoying to just awful, and everything in between.  Impossible for someone not living with Meniere’s to understand.  There are definitely the days of anger. Frustration. Crying. Missing out. Yet I’m so thankful that God has heard me, boosted me, held me, and pushed me. It seems He’s reached down and given me the attitude of positive, not being down, not letting it beat me, and a determination to keep doing my thing. This peace and this fight absolutely do not come from me. They come from something much higher and greater than me, and I can’t explain it. 

Meniere’s Disease gives me pause. It makes me a bit timid, more so than I’ve ever been. Although I feel myself slowly beginning to relax.  To come back. I’m leaning in, I guess. I want to be more optimistic. I don’t want this monster to get in my way. Every day, we feel good, is a day we feel good!  We notice it now. We notice it when we go out somewhere and don’t feel weird.  Kind of an added little gift of perspective, isn't it?  Daily, do we focus on the can, or the can’t? Don't we all want to “go about [our life] with joy and direction"?  For me, I can honestly say Meniere’s Disease is taking me in a new direction. A direction of noticing, seeing myself and others more clearly, appreciating, and awakening a new desire to give back. 

If we let it, the vortex can move in and take over. We can find ourselves caught up in the dark of the storm, the negative, the fear and apprehension, the missing out because of “just in case.” (If you’re like me, you’re ready for those “just in case" moments too.  All you have to do is look in my purse or in the medicine cabinet!)  Yet, we really are trying to just carry on as normally as we possibly can, aren't we?  This thing isn’t going away. It’s in there, and it’s waiting to pounce again, we know that.

Today is today. I can miss the moments in front of me, worried about what might happen, stewing and brewing up a lot of gunky feelings. Or, I can keep looking for what this is teaching me. Embracing it as part of who I am, my journey, and seeing how this thing that is now my constant travel companion is sharing my journey…whether I like it or not.  Knowing this helps me notice and experience life more fully. It certainly humbles me. And oddly, I think at times I see my Meniere’s Disease as a blessing in a way.  It has broken me open.  It has changed me in so many positive ways. 

So, we can resent it, fight it, and let the negative consume us and inhibit us. (And it does some days.)  We can “give over power to [that thing we] resent.”  Or, we can “go about life with joy and direction."  I choose to embrace who I am, turning away from the negative as a daily weight in my life. I choose to move ahead on the path God has put me on, with Meniere’s Disease tagging along beside. There are wonderful things happening.  Large and small.  Today and everyday.  I choose to move toward them. After all, “living well is the best revenge.”