Celestial optimism.

Sometimes I imagine holding hope in my hands feels like holding a star. Of course, I, or anyone else for that matter, can’t actually hold a star, or even touch one. If the gravity didn’t rip me apart before I had a chance to graze my fingers on the fiery ball of light, the intense, all-consuming heat would destroy me instantaneously. Sometimes hope feels that way. Welcoming the blinding, all-encompassing brightness, knowing its fragility could undoubtedly devastate me, like a star whose brilliance is so unbearably beautiful I can’t help but want it in my hands. I’m pulled into hope, like stars. Why is it I’m fascinated and drawn to this body that can ravage me? Why do I look up to the night sky and ache? Carl Sagan said that we are all “made of star stuff”, so we long to return to the cosmos. I can believe that. Especially since my MS became known by name, I’ve felt the stirring inside me, of carbon and nitrogen and oxygen. Swirling atoms forged in the furnace of some now-long-dead star alive in me. A holy, astral figure worthy of awe, yearning to return home. To a place where I can be free of this epithelial prison gone awry. Diagnosis exposing the ways creation gets it wrong. My disease awakening a once dormant cacophony of white blood cells, T cells, B cells and myelin. A marvel of comprehensive construction miraculously formed into being bastardized by faulty wiring. To be back to my original state, stardust, floating in an atmosphere of unknown. I stare at the darkness speckled with stars and realize I am in my original state. The unknown of my illness peppered with hope. Watching it explode into a universe in my hands.

Where do you find hope? How do you hold onto it in the midst of your illness?