beautiful people, you share the same backdoor that I do

I think my hormones are funky, because it sure does seem like I cry a lot these days.

But I was looking over my livejournal friends list and my FB friends list and I was realizing that the cystics are taking over.

Sometimes I am amazed at how far I have come in the last 5 years with this disease and I owe so much of it to all the CFers I have met over the years. I love you guys so much, I don't know if I often express how much the CF community means to me. Seems it is so easy to get wrapped up in my own business.

I laugh sometimes when I go to the CF website I frequent (CF2chat, yo) and here are all these beautiful people and we're talking about the color of our sputum and consistency of our crap, and it is lovely. I love it. Who else on earth can really understand this. Who else would even care?

I love that we are such a close and supportive community. I am so pleased to be part of it. I have never been the joining sort. I didn't really do clubs in high school (aside from the swim team, but that was kind of forced on me - all for the best of course), no sorority for me in college. I tend to hang back, be an observer. Even within the CF community, I think I hold back a bit, tend to wallflower myself sometimes. Yet I could not be happier or PROUDER to say I am a part of this group.

But along with this membership comes the heartache. I hurt for you when I read your blogs and know you're not doing well. So many of us are sick right now, so many are really, really sick. It's so damn unfair that the most wonderful people I have met have to be sick, hurting, unable to breathe. It pisses me off.

I have heard it said more than once, in more than one place, that cystics seem to be really attractive. God's funny joke, eh? Hey, here are these crappy lungs and messed up insides, but I will give you a great face to go with it. We're elfin, faeries. But I know the truth: this beauty is completely represenative of the person inside. Imperfect as the insides may be, I think your hearts and spirits are strong and sparkely and vibrant. Even better than the outsides.

So, my beautiful friends, I send my heart out to you all. I love you!

and I love the non-cystics who read this page as well. The fact that you come here and you care makes you every bit as beautiful to me. thank you.