LOVE…

January 1st, just like every year, from the very first seconds after midnight, messages of “Happy New Year” arrive to fill our phones, mailboxes and social networks. Some wish for you to find a soul mate, others wish you to follow your dreams, or to blossom professionally … and most end with the eternal “and above all, best of health”.

When sickness comes into our lives into our defending body, the wishes that are related to health crystallize for some of us, apprehension for the future, when we are living and fighting day by day to survive.  For others, the wishes only revive the cancer “page” that we are struggling hard to turn as we try to resume the course of our lives. This life will never be the same; the disease having transformed us. Though it marks us forever, it does not mean that we are simply “cancer survivors” reduced to this fight. On the contrary. We more than ever want to be considered in our entirety and in our singularity.

How many times have I heard during my treatments: “at least we know what to wish for you” or “health is the most important,  surely you know that it is for you” … Personally, even if I know that it is not malicious, these little phrases always strike me and make me want to scream out my pain and my fears.

Over this holiday season, I wondered about the words that I would like to hear and those that I would like to express. Intuitively, it is love that I want to feel and to share.

The one with a big L. This emotion is as unique as it is multiple, as deep as it is impalpable, as addictive as it is indefinable, that spark that warms us, that laugh that motivates us, that caress that moves us.

Whether it is love in our relationships, for and from our children, precious friendships, or even those particular small attentions such as a smile from someone unknown that illuminates the day … these gestures of love are possible and perceptible only if we know how to love ourselves.

Love can sometimes be clumsy or not be as one would like it to be … A vast subject whose starting point is the respect we have for ourselves. Self-esteem. It is so simple, that one often forgets the idea.

 At the beginning of this year, I wish to wish you–Love. The love that will give you the strength to continue to fight, to advance, to face the storms but also to enjoy the lulls.

Love is hiding in you, and all around you. Do not doubt it. Know how to feel, to welcome and to offer it. This is the best gift you can give to yourself and others.