Just because spring is here doesn’t mean winter is over.

Such is the message nature seems to send with early spring’s warming days but still freezing nights. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month; the delivery of what we are being promised and afforded samplings of comes a bit later than the moment we feel ready for it — and takes longer than we care to be made to wait.

The delay of spring of another sort accounts for why i haven’t posted here as often lately as anticipated, my own elongated ‘April’ starting months ago, and similarly unkind in its aroused expectation and disappointing deferral. I’m referring to my extended recovery from a serious illness, which i wrote about last December. In that post, i explained why the illness and recovery would not be a primary topic for me on this blog.

I recently decided that doesn’t mean i won’t *ever* write about it…    

After being on this ride for more than 18 months, keeping hopeful through every ‘shouldn’t-have-happened’ obstacle, and now facing a sixth operation with yet another delay… For the first time, i no longer find it credible that my body will ever look or feel not-awful, or that i will ever feel the sense of general wellness again. That is my honest state of mind — at least during almost-spring’s chilly nights.

It’s also “not like me.” But it seems that a re-examining and re-adjustment of my expectations for getting back to 100% is called for. I see it as a step toward acquiring the emotional equilibrium needed to get me through until i am proven wrong.

At this stage, pushing through on that re-oriented basis feels more beneficial than bashing into the walls you hit when you thought you were *supposed* to keep telling yourself that everything is going to be warm and sunny any minute now — and then finding yourself devastated and catatonic at the next cold snap.

I haven’t lost hope, but i certainly have, for now, lost some optimism.

And i think that’s ok for the time being. I still know that spring really is coming.