HOPE

Bonjour, 

Well here we are again at the end of another year and just about to start a new one. Of course traditionally everyone likes to wish you a `Happy New Year` and tries to make New Year resolutions. Everyone hopes that things will get better in the New Year.

My dictionary says that HOPE is expectation and desire (of thing, of doing, that).     

But with a long term and chronic illness, like Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, what hope is there? What can I hope for? What do you hope for?

How can we have the same expectations and desires as `normal and healthy` people? Our lives have been changed by chronic illness. So therefore our hope changes. This is what I said in my poem about hope...

Hope

To have a better day

The pain to go away 

Hope

This fatigue will soon end

And my body can mend 

Hope

To find energy

Then start recovery 

Hope

To improve my pacing

Against all I’m facing 

Hope

I find new ways to cope

Which come within my scope 

Hope

To increase more awareness

So disbelief is less 

Hope

That I can work again

And all’s not lost in vain 

Hope

To better understand

This dreadful M.E. land 

Hope

For a future healthy

And at last M.E. free!

 

  

I feel as if  the best I can hope for is an improvement in the level of my health and to see a step nearer to a cure.. 

I also hope that my poems and what I write helps to increase awareness and understanding of this incredibly difficult illness. 

I think there has to be hope, in order to keep going, not to give in to illness and try to remain positive. I know that`s hard for many and life can seem pointless. Otherwise what sort of life is it? So try to find some hope for the future. Maybe hope has changed but you can still hope.    

Of course many like to celebrate New Year`s Eve.  

Here in France New Year day is popularly called as Jour des Étrennes, and le Jour de I'An. New Year day celebrations are referred as 'Reveillion'. It is considered one of the oldest in France and is an official public holiday.

`People in France go and meet their friends and families, to celebrate the special day with mutual solemnity and ecstasy. A pleasant farewell to the old year and a grand welcome to the New Year is done, with an optimistic hope of success, prosperity, happiness, and peace in the coming time. New Year celebrations begin on New Years' eve and go on till the 6th January of the New Year. In France, New Year's Eve is referred as la Saint-Sylvestre.`

`On New Year's Eve, a traditional ceremony is organized in France, as a part of which, a special festive cake with the name of la galette des rois is cut. A special feast, called as le Réveillon de Saint-Sylvestre is planned, which have traditional dishes such as pancakes and foie gras (flavored duck or goose) on the platter. Also, champagne is served to the visitors. According to French traditions, this special dinner brings in prosperity and good luck to the lives of all those attending the feast.`

I`m not well enough to join in these traditional celebrations.  If I am lucky I may have a glass of something to bring in the New Year. At the same time I will be wondering and hoping that 2014 will be a better one for me and so many of my sick friends. 

Bonne Année! 
From the French Femme
See you in 2014
xxx