It’s been just over a year since the seizure that led to my epilepsy diagnosis.  About a month ago, I had an MRI showing that previous signs of possible hippocampal damage have gone away.  My seizures have gotten ever milder and less frequent.  The new carnivorous diet has helped – I feel vital, have lost nearly 15 pounds, and find that paying attention to what I eat is just another form of paying attention in general.

Perhaps this is what management of a chronic health condition looks like.  Actual symptoms may abate along a steady continuum, but then abruptly pop back in like some irritating uncle who never thinks to call ahead.  Still, you reach a psychological inflection point.  You stop thinking of yourself as “sick” and start feeling “well.”  I passed this mark about three weeks ago, and I’ve felt a quiet ebullience ever since.

Also, I find my field of vision is shifting.  Instead of a relentless, near-field focus on the NOW, I’ve lifted my head.  I’m noticing the long cycles of change around me.  When we moved into this neighborhood eighteen years ago, Marcus was an infant.  Most of our neighbors had older kids, were retired or elderly.  Now, Marcus is off to college; Paige is spending the summer here, but as a young adult.  Some beloved next-door neighbors also moved out recently, their daughter long-fledged, the house and yard too big for their needs.  A young professional couple has moved in, with two tow-headed rascals who daily remind me that a squeal of joy needs only a split second to become a howl of protest.  The boys love to play in the creek that runs through our backyards, the one that Paige and Marcus played in as toddlers, the same one that flooded and destroyed our landscaping in 2013, and that I am finally feeling well enough to rebuild.  I’m replanting mostly with the perennials that survived, outcompeted the weeds, and bloomed on their own: iris, spiria, poppy, yarrow, lime grass, sage.  I’m building retaining walls where the water swept in, using big rocks from a nearby house slated for demolition (the friendly new owners told me I could help myself).  I wonder whether previous generations of neighbors shared or traded these same rocks.  I greet young couples on the sidewalk, watch them coo over babies or “starter” pets.  I wonder how many times this neighborhood has cycled, from young to old and back again.  I know the creek will outlast us all.

People sometimes describe adverse events in their lives as “gifts.”  It’s a rather fraught idea.  If you suggest to another person that their adversity is a “gift,” you’re likely to get feedback resembling a punch in the mouth.  If you say it about yourself, you risk sounding like some spiritualist  poseur.    But when I look back over this year, the word “gift” does come to mind. Here’s what I mean by it.  Certain experiences are deep enough to change you in essential ways.  If you are regain balance, it is a new balance.  If you regain sight, it is a new sight.  If you regain love, it is a new love.  So in that sense, life-altering adversity gives you the “gift” of a new life.  For me, epilepsy has prompted me to change my career, my diet, my sleep and my self-care.  It has given me an excuse and compulsion to write these posts, and to receive an abundance of love, support and commentary from you in return.  It has changed how I pay attention to my mind, and to my world.   If those aren’t gifts, then I don’t know what is.