“Hope begins in the dark”

Sometimes, “Just do it”, is said to inspire or motivate you. But most times it just makes you question yourself all over again & nothing gets accomplished. Change is hard, being vulnerable & courageous about putting yourself out there is hard. Nothing is easy when you have a disability that makes you question everything.

My beautiful friend Lori & I started talking about launching a blog over a year ago. Since then I’ve been writing, believing I would go live with the blog any day. Well here we are & it’s not live. But today is the day. It’s not perfect, it’ll require a lot of updates. But we can start sharing our journeys.

It’s scary being brutally honest about living with a chronic illness. People want to see your happiness, but that’s not always reality. Seeing your painful truth is difficult for people to process. You’ll have people who doubt you or tell you to toughen up. You’ll hear things like, exercise more, eat healthy, it’s all in your head, or many other insulting & hurtful comments. Or you’ll be told that a positive mind changes everything. It’s important, trust me, being positive about the future is all that keeps you going some days. But being positive is not going to cure an incurable disease. So I’ll fight to be as positive as possible within my reality & that’s all I can promise.

Listen I have a beautiful life. If I had the opportunity to be healthy, but I had to give up my life & the people in it, I would choose to stay sick. I have faith that God is with me and I am doing my best to live the plan he has for me with joy. But it’s just not an easy path I’ve been given. My days are hard, scary & painful. I choose to find joy in the darkness & I have to choose it every minute of every day. Sometimes I just don’t have the strength to care if I’m happy. Because I’m just trying to stay alive. That’s the truth. If it makes you uncomfortable, count your blessings that you don’t have to walk my path.

We all have burdens to carry. This is mine & I’m finally ready to share my story. If it helps even one person, it’s worth all the effort & courage it took for me to hit “publish”.