Post #100: In which Crohn's steals my ball (again)

EVERY TIME. 

In the picture above, I am Charlie Brown. 

The football is lack of pain; hope; happiness; normalcy. 

Lucy is Crohn's. 

Fucking Lucy. 

Day after day, I keep kicking the ball, thinking that TODAY WILL BE THE DAY that I connect, and every day I fall flat on my ass, and am stupidly surprised when the wind gets knocked from my lungs. 

Why should pain surprise me at this point? Why should it surprise me that it's in a different place this time? Why should it surprise me that sorbet and sprinkles (apparently, sprinkles are like nature's little thumbtacks once they hit the colon) would throw my carefully calibrated diet completely off its access? 

And yet: every time it happens, every time the ball gets yanked away at the last minute, I feel it as keenly as if it's happening for the first time. I guess it's a survival mechanism, to disregard the probable and willfully ignore the potential for pain and fear and discomfort. It's a choice I make every morning. How else to live out the day? 

Suspension of disbelief-it's my morning coffee. 

Today was a bad day. Tomorrow? I'll kick that ball again like it's the first time, and hope for better things.