You don't remember the sweet taste of the water till the well starts to flow again

 (The picture's meaning will become clear at the end)

There is a well known saying that basically tells you that you take your blessings for granted until they disappear. The saying is of course "You don't miss the water till the well runs dry". It is a good and true saying and very applicable. Think of examples: Good health can be invisible until you suddenly lose it. Harmony in a workplace might be something you totally overlook until it evaporates. A good friend may be undervalued until suddenly they move away or die. All of these are true.

But recently I have come to see that there is another, mirror-image saying that is just as true but sometimes overlooked. It is the one at the top of this post. Basically, you sometimes don't realise the value of what you have lost until it comes back. 

I obviously have several recent and good examples of this with my treatment. When I came out of a five day high fever I had forgotten how wonderful it feels to get up and put your own clothes on instead of that hospital gown. Over the last few days I have improved physically, but also my mind has become much clearer, although I had never realised that I had lost any clarity. Basically because when you lose clarity you also lose the ability to see this fact. 

So I want to celebrate that wonderful moment when something comes back to you that you had temporarily lost. And you had so completely lost it that you only knew its true nature when you saw it again. 

Think for example of a time when there was turmoil at work. Anyone like me who has worked in schools will have gone through a time when everything in your institution became soured or worse. Sometimes outside pressures can break the ethos temporarily. But then when order is re-established and colleagues start to remember why they enjoy working there, it can be a real sunrise moment. You feel around you that familiar harmony and support that had been there for so long before the turmoil. And it feels great to have it again. 

In a long relationship or marriage you can have times that threaten your harmony and love. External pressures, changes, illness, misunderstanding: all of these can throw you off balance with the one you love. But then one day there is some change, some look, some touch that makes you realise that the bad time is over. And you feel again "Oh there it is! there is the joy that was so normal to us that we didn't remember to value it enough!"

But whatever the reason that something good disappears or hides from you for a time, the feeling when it comes back is always so good. That recognition of what you had lost and which is now returned. Time to kill a fatted calf!