Wouldn’t it be amazing if, during our darkest hour, we could reach under our bed and open up a box of hope?  A “box of hope” could be a figurative thing that we reach inside ourselves or out to God to find.  But sometimes you need something more.  Sometimes you need a literal box of hope.  And that is just what I created for myself during my darkest hour.

When I was 16 years old, during my senior year of high school, I was immersed in a deep and serious clinic depression.  My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder had just been diagnosed but was not yet under control.  I had constant intrusive thoughts of hurting myself – of ending my life.

Looking back I really had amazing self control on the whole.  But I could only handle so much.  The second time I caved in to the constant bombardment of intrusive images of self-harm, and I ended up cutting myself using razor blades my parents had forgotten to hide out in the garage.

Afterward I was on the phone with my therapist at the time.  She was telling me I was at a crossroads… that if I chose to continue down this path of cutting I would probably end up in a hospital.  I wasn’t really listening to what she was saying.  Instead, I was transfixed by what was sitting on the desk in front of me – the candlelighting piece my mom had made for my younger sister’s Bat Mitzvah.  She had glued this tiny shells all over the outside of it go with my sister’s tropical theme.  And it struck me then with incredible intensity how very beautiful those tiny shells were – how simply amazing it was that something SO tiny could be SO beautiful.  And if something that tiny in life could be that beautiful… well all of life was beautiful and precious as well.

I rushed to get off the phone with my therapist.  I knew that I had to find a way to hang onto this feeling.  I had stumbled upon my internal box of hope!  But I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to tap into again.  I had to find a way to make it physical while it was fresh in my mind.  I had to find a way to remind myself of this epiphany every day because I knew there would be many dark days ahead where I would desperately need to draw on my box of hope.

So I had my mom (who is good at crafty things) help me cover an old shoe box with some bright pretty wrapping paper.  I wanted my box of hope to be private and inconspicuous on the outside.  I didn’t tell her what it was for, but perhaps sensing my urgency she kindly helped me anyway.  Then I took the box upstairs to my room and set to work.

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Going through pictures and old magazines I decorated the inside of the box with things I wanted to do with my life, places I wanted to travel, people who cared about me, things that filled me with hope.  I hadn’t yet found out if I had gotten into USC Film School (a few months later I did), so I put a picture of a director’s chair with “USC Alumni” written on it.  I glued in some of the very shells that had led me to make the box to remind me of how beautiful life could be.

I put a picture of myself as a child to remind myself of happy memories of my childhood innocence.  I was obsessed with The X-Files and desperately wanted to know how it would all end, so I put a picture of that as well.

Most importantly I wrote in large purple letters:

I CHOOSE TO CONTINUE LIVING

I WILL GET THROUGH THIS

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Then it was time to fill the box.  Inside I placed a smiling drama mask to remind me of my love of theater and the creative arts since creativity had always sustained me during dark times and given me something to look forward to.

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I placed my childhood comfort animals – my blanky, kitty, and lamby – inside.  Though nubby and threadbare from a lifetime of being loved the went into the box to remind me to always feel safe.

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Next went the rug I wove myself while learning about Native Americans in elementary school.  I had always hated looking at it when I was younger because I hadn’t done it perfectly like my best friend Jennifer.  But over time I came to love it for it’s imperfections.  In the box, it reminded me that imperfection could be beautiful too!

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I put in a bracelet I made when I was 11.  All the beads were pretty by themselves but together well… it reminds me that you can have too much of a good thing.  But also to have fun and to have a sense of humor in all things.

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Second to last I put in a rope I tediously made myself during Outdoor Education in 5th grade.  I spent over an hour with my hands going numb in an icy cold river laboriously pounding all the moisture out of a reed before braiding it into a rope.  It reminds me of the power of hard work.  And the rope itself, which could hold my whole body weight, reminds me to always be strong.

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Finally I included a letter that saved my life one day.  I was home alone after school and feeling very suicidal.  I was searching for a knife to cut myself with.  Suddenly, I had a prompting to go check the mail before I got any further.  I almost never received any mail, but on that very day the following letter was there for me.

I cried when I read the letter.  It quite possibly saved my life that day.  I stopped looking for a knife and starting trying to figure out who could have sent it.  I didn’t think about hurting myself at all for the rest of that day.  The letter reminds me that I am loved even when I don’t realize it or it doesn’t feel that way, and that God is there working miracles in my life.

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I looked at my box of hope every day for about a year. It got me through a lot of very dark hours and days and months. Then there came a time when I could carry my box of hope around with me in my heart, and I didn’t need to look at it so often.

Now it mostly sits in my closet, but I always know it is there if I need it.  But today I was talking with a friend who is going through a very dark time in her life, and I told her about it.  I offered to send her photos of it, but, I thought, why not go a step farther and share it here?  Perhaps there is someone else who needed a little box of hope today.

Has anyone else made a box of hope or something similar?  Please share and post about it in the comments!

Tonight I wheelchair danced.

But that’s not where this story starts.

Once upon a time, I was afraid of dancing.  In fact, for most of my life I was afraid of dancing.  I never was super coordinated and I certainly lacked natural rhythm.  I was convinced I couldn’t dance and that I looked stupid trying.

Later, when I was old enough to have a few drinks first, I could get up the courage to dance a bit.  And when over a year ago now I ended up in a wheelchair, dancing seemed to be out of the cards forever.

But the world works in mysterious ways.  And someone named Jane McGonigal came into my life and with her eventually came her invention Top Secret Dance Off.  She and her games have changed my life for the better in innumerable ways and she has truly been a blessing to me, so when I heard about Top Secret Dance Off or TSDO I knew I had to be a part of it.

However, the way you participated in TSDO was by donning a disguise and submitting your video of you dancing to one of the dance challenges.  But I was in a wheelchair.  I could barely dance before.  How could I now?  But I am not so easily dissuaded from something I am determined to do.  So timid at first I made my first and then second video featuring Finger Dancing!

But then I began to joke to my fellow TSDO players that I would wow them with a wheelchair ballet.  Their response to the idea was so positive that I decided that it was something I had to do.  So I recruited my best friend and caregiver at the time Sarina (a real former ballerina) to help me.  The result wasn’t something either of us expected and the response to the video blew me away.  People laughed and cried and were moved and inspired.

For my wheelchair ballet video I won a mask.  The only condition of accepting the new mask as a reward was I had to make a video of me putting on the mask for the first time and dance whatever dance came out using a dance move known as “the solar eclipse” which I was told started in the elbows.  To this day I’m not sure what happened to me when I put on the mask, but my fear of dancing was conquered!  See for yourself…

So tonight I am unmasking myself to all of you because tonight while out to dinner and dancing with my dad and his girl friend I wheelchair danced without any mask at all and I didn’t have to think twice about it.  And although I didn’t see it myself, my dad said when I powered on my wheelchair to spin around on the dance floor, the people behind me watching applauded and cheered.

It occurs to me that the world is full of little miracles and hidden blessings like this.  Because without a wheelchair and Jane and TSDO I may have never challenged myself to get over my fear of dancing at all.

When you are sick all the time you often have to (sometimes unwilling) rely on the help and support of other people.  And that is something that should not be taken for granted.  So today, on the one year anniversary of this blog, I feel like I really have to thank all of you who have joined me in my journey as a novel patient.  During the ups and downs of this last year, your comments and support have been such a source of strength for me to draw upon.  And this blog has come a long long way since my first post.  Not only has its readership grown, but its pushed me to improve as a writer.  It’s even spawned the Novel Patient Community where every novel patient can have their own blog.

Though it has been a rough year in many ways, I am thankful for so many things.  I am thankful for a mom who not only lets me, her 26 year old daughter, live with her, but helps take care of me.  I am thankful for a dad who cares so much for me that he will always try and do what he thinks is best for me.  I am grateful for a caregiver who I also consider a close friend and a also for a best friend who I know will always be there for me when I need her.  I am thankful for a wonderfully supportive sister.  I am thankful for a cuddly dog that adores me.

I am also thankful for my doctors who have often gone out of their way to make sure I get the care I need.  I know I am a very complicated case to have to deal with.  This year I decided to make the five of my doctor’s I see the most handmade holiday cards to let them know how much I appreciate what they do for me.