Invisible Illness

Some days you’d never know upon looking at her and she didn’t mind in the slightest. 

The perceptions of others were out of her control. Just like this was. Just like every day was. Some days just seemed luckier than others. 

She rarely pretended it was all better than it was. It required effort she couldn’t muster. She just tried to make peace with the fact that it could change within a matter of hours, never mind day-to-day. 

And somehow she was content and often even happy. It was the way she was; able to meet both ecstasy and despair with the same matter-of-factness. 

But underneath, if you were to really scrutinise her you might wonder if it’d all had more of a detrimental effect than you’d first thought. 

You might see a heart so heavy that the weight of it pulled her features downwards leaving no trace of the smiling eyes that had graced her face for the two previous decades. 

She was different now. And through no fault of her own. 

There was a sadness about her sometimes. Not often but sometimes; when the balance between hope and acceptance was too hard to find. 

All that she’d thought she knew about life had unravelled at such a speed that it was astounding that she didn’t feel stuck in a constant state of disorientation. 

But as quickly as the sadness could set in, it was nothing on the speed with which it would leave. As if there was something deep inside her that could deflect it before it penetrated her soul.