"What Comes is Better Than What Came Before"

Mosiah 21: 16 And it came to pass that they began to prosper by degrees in the land.

I am sick. And this is not going to be one of those blogs where someone uses it as a complaining wall and dumps all their frustrations out for everyone with Internet access to read. But, I came across this verse in my reading of the Book of Mormon the other day and it sparked a thought in me. One thought, led to another (as most thoughts do) and I realized something... In the words of the Beatles, "Its Getting Better All the Time."

On May 4th, my throat began to tickle. I wanted to cough, but really I had nothing to cough about. So...I didn't think anything of it. May 5th, I woke up in a panic. I was getting sick and I felt it coming. Slowly. Most may not know this about me, but when I get sick, I usually name the virus I have. It is common for human beings to get sick with several different types of cold in their lifetime and so, when I get sick it makes me feel better to assign a name and number to each virus.

This cold was virus #1100, or "the crawling cold." It started out slowly, and has been crawling through me as slow as possible, since the beginning of May. It also arrived at a week in which I had many things planned and I sacrificed almost everything to virus #1100. I missed my good friend's wedding reception, dinner with a co-worker who I had not seen in a year, a french goodbye party for another friend, a trip to California with my boyfriend and his family, and worst of all... I missed the Breast Cancer 5k Run for the Cure. All of these things were sacrificed as well as two days of work and my regular eating and exercising routine and for almost two weeks. Life has sucked. My nose is raw, and dry and I can't laugh without having to cough. I sound like a full-grown man for the first 3 hours of the day and I haven't been able to breathe fully or swallow without wincing for over a week.

But, this morning I woke up and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was getting better "in degrees." I love that phrase because it truly captures what this life is all about. This life never flips on its side and sheds its problems like the skin of a snake, but instead, we see things improve one by one. The infuriating thing too is that this is also how I learn... by degrees.

I laid in bed this morning and I started to breathe a little deeper and my head wasn't as heavy. And I listened to one bird outside become three, trilling and chattering in the trees. Slow open blue shades slid across the sky and my room became brighter in degrees. Then I thought of how the seasons yank us back and forth until we are sick to our stomachs of winter and snow and thick inversion, and then... one day, we look outside and the sweet warm weather stays for a whole week instead of an afternoon. Or, after the burning stench of summer, we finally get a cool rain in September and a breeze, kind enough to lighten the burden. The key to it all is recognizing the improvement by degrees so as not to sink into depression that can accompany any lull.

Call me an amber-eyed optimist if you must, but colds do come to an end, bad hair cuts do grow out, pulled muscles and broken hearts do heal... and the minute I stop thinking about what I want to change, my life improves by degrees and my heart grows lighter.