"Get busy living, or get busy dying".

Today marks the one year anniversary of my cardiac arrest. When I woke up this morning, it wasn't the first thing I thought of. As my husband was leaving for work I was about to remind him, but I caught my tongue between my teeth and said nothing.

I have no need to relive the event or period surrounding it. What I have are no feelings. It's not even a memory. It's a tiny speckle in the far distance, of an event my husband has described to me. What I have is gratitude for the memory loss I have surrounding the event and for the psychiatric assistance I've had to get over the resounding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with it. It seems the shrink sessions worked...

Love this Angel's expression: "I have a hammer
and a book, I got shit to do, I'm busy, leave me alone!"

I love the quote from Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying". For me, it's become as simple a choice as that. My focus has been on health (healthy eating; exercise; minimising stress; resting, when possible with a two year old) and getting on with life. I'm busy living.

I went to a parenting course some weeks back where they discussed "labeling" our kids. The concept took me straight back to childhood: I was always the sick one, the weak one, I had to be constantly careful and looked after, dressed like an onion so I wouldn't catch a cold, excluded from physical activities and ostracised. I had worked really hard before the cardiac arrest to remove the "sick" label from my identity, and after the cardiac arrest, it was hard not yielding to it again. I realised in that moment I was no longer that sick person with a heart problem, or the cardiac arrest victim, I hadn't been for some time now.

50 Cent puts it well in his song Many Men (Wish Death):

Sunny days wouldn't be special, if it wasn't for rain.
Joy wouldn't feel so good, if it wasn't for pain.
Death gotta be easy, 'cause life is hard.
It'll leave you physically, mentally, and emotionally scarred.

I like these lyrics because they remind me that life is about taking the bad with the good and getting on with it. I'd rather be physically, mentally and emotionally scarred, than not be at all. And believe me, I have plenty of scars!

So to that I say: happy anniversary; and happy living to everyone!