a letter to somebody newly diagnosed with ME (unedited)

It's not a bad thing to be scared

Life will not be the same as it once was

The image of your future is adapting, perhaps begrudgingly, into a smaller, more malleable form

You now find great extacy in the beauty of daily things

... The vista beckoning you from the window

...The ability to bathe and change into clean clothes

... The continued efforts of those you love dearly, as they decide what your illness means for them

While your grief swells each coming season, realizing... it, too, will be like the last

Our loved ones need only surrender who they thought we'd become in the past

We are the ones still alive, at last

Discovering new joys where trifling things once dissolved