after another doctor's visit, i learned that it will take longer than i expected to heal. the pain is still there. the feeling of helplessness. but, within all this, still i grow gratitude for life. 

quiet patience. 

quiet strength. 

loud hope. 

"Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to A Young Poet