I don't belong here

If you were to ask me, I would say that I am a really healthy person. I don't see myself as someone who has had health problems pop up for the past 8 years. I imagine myself to be strong and healthy and mostly invincible (though not so much with my joints anymore - I'm not completely disconnected from the reality of aging). I totally expect to live into my 90s with good health and mind. In daydreams, I imagine myself as someone who would survive a collapse in society. If our population were to be wiped out by disease or war, I would be resourceful enough to survive.

But in reality, I would probably not last more than a year if we became Yemen or Syria or the world in Station Eleven (assuming I made it past all of the non-controllable events). In reality, I am the person who develops the weird condition during pregnancy that none of the books talk about, and difficulties during labor that no Lamaze class prepares you for. I am the person who develops hypothyroidism, though no one in my family suffers from it, possibly as an auto-immune disease or possibly as a rarer version (after 7 years with the disease we are still unsure). I am the person who, evidently, gets cancer at 40 as a result of a failed pregnancy. Never knew that could happen. But it happened to me.

But I take good care of myself, and I feel like I am all the way here, not fading away. I eat really well: lots of whole foods, fresh vegetables of every color, whole grains and seeds, red meat only rarely. I drink water. I have eliminated artificial sweeteners and most processed foods. I am mindful of what chemicals I expose myself to (cleaners, bug sprays, lotions, etc). We take our shoes off at the front door. I exercise and meditate and live life with the glass half-full. I have plans in life, things to do, people to love.

So now the voice in my head says that this is all so very unfair. It isn't supposed to happen like this. Not to me. I feel like a strong, normal person who should be able to have as many children as we want without getting cancer from trying. I don't want to be having chemo and the weeks of blah that follow. I don't want my body to feel like this. I want to get back to normal, even if it is just to paint and exercise and cook dinners and sometimes clean my house. I want to be able to make plans for the day, the week, the season without the caveat that I may instead need to take a nap, locked away in my prison of poor health, all the while silently yelling that this is all wrong, that really I am a healthy person, I don't belong here!