The Road

I started this series, “The road to Tennessee” as if it was some kind of journey to an inevitable end. All the challenges Rachel and I have faced on the road to finally get to a specialist. I thought that was it. That was the challenge. Once we found a specialist we would finally move forward without the same sense of being lost. The specialist was supposed to be the beginning of the end.

Unfortunately things aren’t that way. Getting to Tennessee was rough. We were faced with fears, road blocks, anticipation, stresses, and countless other emotional rollercoasters just to finally have someone confirm what we’d feared. But honestly that’s all it’s been so far. All we’ve got out of this hellish road is confirmation that all those fears, anxieties, and stresses were not in vain. We were right to feel those things, because Rachel has this disease.

We’ve talked recently about how much harder it is to write about what’s going on right now. Everything we’ve written up to this point has been in hindsight. It’s easy to look back and see what you did wrong, or break down the emotions you felt in the past, but breaking down how you feel right now, well that’s not as easy. We’re faced with impossible decisions that could change the course of our lives. How can you truly describe those feelings?

I think the best way is a quote from The Lord of the Rings “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I can barely process my own emotions when I am feeling this way, but can you even comprehend how hard it is to watch the one you love feel this way? It’s been one thing to hear Rachel express the challenges, I could sympathize and look for ways to support her, but lately I can see how thin she is spread, and how each day she is spread over even more bread.

This is the road we are on, and it’s not a road to Tennessee or to any other major event that will somehow bring things to a close. It’s just a road. A bumpy, pothole covered road barely paved, with trees overgrown scratching the paint off our car as we press forward. Sometimes we break out of the branches and for a moment we can see a version of the life we want, but that hope only lasts for a moment til the sound of branches scratching off paint echoes in our ears again.

Our hope is in our love for each other. It’s in the love we received from our family and for the sacrifices they’ve made to support us on this road. Our hope is that despite all they’ve given they’ll be up for giving more. Thank you to all who’ve followed this journey, this Road to Tennessee series. I don’t intend to stop writing about our experience. I feel like I’ve done so much better about expressing myself through writing, but this is no longer a destination experience, it’s just a road.