Falling into gratitude, navigating auto-immune crashes and carving pumpkins, this is the beginning of my fall...

I count down the days to fall/Winter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas every year...it is my happy place. This year I have been in my worst auto- immune flare since the really bad parts of my experience with Lyme disease years ago. This time has not been as bad as it was when I was in the thick of Lyme disease, but it has been debilitating in a similar way.

I have been mostly bed (or rather couch) confined for weeks. And I struggled for months (Since 2020 off on and on honestly) leading up to this level of a flare. I've enjoyed the moments I've had out of the house (even if it was just to the store) and I enjoy smiling at people in the wild who have no idea what I'm fighting physically. Sometimes its nice, even for a moment, to forget my body keeps treating everything like a foriegn invader (sometimes including itself) and just enjoy that I'm still here. To enjoy the beauty stll left in the word (and there is a lot of it).

I am also thankful to have started new protocols. These will hopefuly level my body back out, and get me back to the health I was experiencing in 2019 (before Covid decided to wreck things). There are always isues with starting new protocols some can be pretty miserable, and it's a rollercoaster ride for a while of good and bad days, but the prayer is that it leads to best days.

I always look for the silver lining, the break in the clouds, a safe space, a spec of hope to latch on to. And I don't stop looking until I find it. For me, these things equal chilly fall like mornings, sunlight on my face, having the strength to text someone I love and make sure they are doing okay. A Coloring book and crayons, a toy I loved growing up, Coffe in my favorite fall snoopy cup. My fur babies getting older but still being with me to kiss and cuddle through the hard times. I could go on forever with things I'm thankful for.

One of my greatest silver linings of late, has been bundling up and sitting outside. I take a coth chair out with a cozy blanket as the sun is coming up and just breath, listen to the stillness of the morning and watch my puppies (they might be 12 but they are forever puppies to me) investigate all the new smells. When you focus on gratitude even the hard days have magic, you do have to look a little harder, longer and deeper for it, but its' there.

There are many things I loved doing that right now I cannot. But that is also why the things I still can do right now have become so beautiful. Where I used to walk the path in the pen at my house and rattle off the things each morning I was thankful for, I now use a chair but I have even more to be thankful for now. Becasue that is where I choose to place my focus to survive.

And in the meantime I will hold on to the hope and faith that soon enough I will be walking and ratling off things I'm thankful for again. Because even in the hardest and darkest of times gratitude is a game changer. I will post more after I get to carve my happy pumpkin.

I hope you get to have the most magical fall ever, in spite of what life throws.

Be honest, Be real, Be you

Bobbie De Leon