As it should be...

It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Charles Dickens

I officially retired today. There was a lunch and a presentation to mark the event. I had a mixture of emotions. I was on the one hand sad that due to my health condition I could no longer work. On the other hand I was delighted that I had been given the opportunity to be freed from the shackles of work through economic necessity. As I have said before I will by no means be rich but we will have enough to have a decent life and the key word here is life. This has a couple of different meanings for me. Of course the obvious one is that I am alive despite this horrible illness. The other is that I am actually now able to enjoy my life and take pleasure in it, every day not just on holidays and weekends.

So really, how did I cope with this monumental day, a day which brought to the fore the realities of my on going fight and the pain and sadness that it can at times bring? I viewed it in its entirety and I viewed it realistically. Where there is sadness, happiness can exist and walk beside it. Life is really never straightforward, to exist without experiencing a mixture of emotions is to not really live at all. I saw a variety of people today including some of the staff who taught Olivia when she was at school across the road from mine. I also caught up with people from my school who I had worked with over the years. Some of the words from these people brought tears to my eyes. While I face this battle it never ceases to amaze me how much kindness there is in people. Faced with a horrible situation I am nonetheless introduced to the very best side of people, a side that is always there but is on full show in the worst of times. So you could say that I am blessed to be given such opportunities. I get to simultaneously bask in the spring of hope whilst reckoning with the very real winter of despair. This is living.