Be in love with your life. Every detail of it.
I’ve sat with this quote for a long time. I have had it on my kitchen wall for years, but lately I have found myself debating its validity and relevance in my daily life.
Some days it lands softly, but other days it feels like a provocation.
Because here’s the truth: loving every detail of life after a spinal cord injury is not simple, poetic or Instagram-friendly. It’s complicated. It’s uncomfortable. And sometimes it feels downright impossible.
After injury, life doesn’t just change — it becomes logistical. Everything takes planning. Energy has a price. Independence becomes conditional. There are losses that don’t arrive all at once but keep turning up quietly, in ordinary moments you didn’t know would matter so much.
So, after more surgery and more dependence recently, I find my current reaction to Kerouac’s words to be resistance.
Every detail?
The chair? The pain? The admin? The constant calculations before leaving the house? The emotional labour of just existing in public?
No. I wasn’t in love with those details. And I still aren’t, most days.
But, if I’m really honest with myself and keep things objective, I have to admit to myself that I’m probably reading the quote too literally.
Love doesn’t always mean liking
Real love — the kind that lasts — isn’t blind enthusiasm. It’s not pretending things are fine when they aren’t. It’s staying present even when you’re frustrated, grieving, tired or angry.
Being in love with my life doesn’t mean approving of – or liking – everything in it. It means not abandoning it just because it no longer looks the way I imagined it would.
I can hate parts of this reality and still choose to live fully inside it.
Both things can be true.
A different kind of attention to detail
Disability has changed the way I see details.
I notice effort now. I notice accessibility — or the lack of it. I notice the cost of small things that used to be effortless. I notice how much courage is hidden inside ordinary days.
There is nothing romantic about this awareness.
But it’s honest.
And it’s mine.
Loving my life today looks less like celebration and more like loyalty.
It looks like:
appreciating quiet days because they are manageable
valuing small wins because they are hard-earned
respecting my body not for what it does, but for what it endures
trusting my mind for adapting when my body could not
That may not be Kerouac’s version of love — but it’s real.
Every detail doesn’t mean every moment
This distinction matters – to me.
I don’t love every moment of this life. Some moments are brutal. Some feel and probably are unfair. Some still hurt in ways I haven’t found language for yet.
But loving my life means claiming it anyway.
It means saying:
this is hard, and I’m still here
this changed me, and I’m still becoming
this wasn’t the plan, but it is the life I’m living
There is power in refusing to reduce a life to its limitations.
Why the quote still applies to me
Loving life after spinal cord injury is not optimism or, as some would prefer to call it…positivity.
It’s defiance.
It’s choosing engagement and participation over withdrawal. Presence over waiting. Meaning and purpose over bitterness.
I don’t love my life because it’s perfect.
I love it because it’s real — because I’m still thinking, still feeling, still choosing, still building something meaningful inside circumstances I didn’t choose and I don’t always like.
So maybe being in love with your life isn’t about liking every detail.
Maybe it’s just about staying.
And some days, like today, that’s more than enough.
A closing thought, for anyone struggling
If you’re reading this and finding it hard to love every detail of your own life — for whatever reason — please know this: you are not failing at life.
Loving a life doesn’t require constant gratitude, positivity or acceptance. It doesn’t mean you have to make peace with everything all at once, or pretend that what hurts doesn’t matter.
Sometimes love looks like showing up anyway. Sometimes it looks like staying curious. Sometimes it looks like taking one honest breath and deciding not to walk away from your own story.
You don’t have to love every detail to be in love with your life.
You just have to keep choosing it — imperfectly, reluctantly, bravely — as it is, right now..
...one more important after thought
One more thing that matters…
Loving your life does not require you to broadcast your hardest moments. You don’t owe anyone a full emotional disclosure just because you’re struggling. Not every feeling needs an audience, and not every difficult season needs to be explained out loud.
Remember, there is strength in discernment. There is protection in privacy.
Some details of your life are meant to be lived, felt, processed and understood by you — quietly, honestly, without commentary or performance. Oversharing pain can leave you exposed in ways that don’t always lead to support or understanding.
You are allowed to say, “I’m okay,” and mean, “I’m handling this in my own way.” You are allowed to love your life privately, imperfectly, and without making your struggles public property.
Being in love with your life isn’t about convincing others that you’re coping.
It’s about finding a way to stay connected to your own life, to love the details of your life — on your terms..
Love you