As I sat here reading my latest blog post, I began laughing as I reminisced about a memory from my time in junior high school. My English teacher, Mr. McIntyre, marched me up the hill to the high school to have my first essay reviewed for plagiarism! I presumed that since I was in Jr High now, I should write to impress in my best vocabulist style. I turned in a piece full of erudite vocabulary, and I used every word my father ever taught us. My Dad gave us a new word everyday. We had to learn the definition. It seems that in writing my last post, I was so excited about using clear vocabulary and grammar that I ended up using excessive and exaggerated words. I may have been over eager in Jr. High and with my blog post.
However, the extraordinary vocabulary is out of my system now. I will leave my pompous writing in that one blog post and save it for future poetry. That being said, when the next big achievement in my health journey happens, I’ll go overboard, yet again. Anyone with a chronic illness knows we get few victories, but we celebrate all of them. Maybe my strength and endurance will improve and I’ll hike a mountain! I have always set goals and fought like hell to reach them. There was a time when I ran daily. Running was my meditation, my personal time and it helped my mental health tremendously! I lost the agility to run quickly when my illness struck. Amidst the turmoil of learning I was misdiagnosed and cleaning my system from all the wrong medications and treatments, I somehow had an epiphany! I decided I wanted to run one last race. Fully aware that I was slowly losing my mobility, I knew this was probably my last chance. I spent days building up the strength mentally just to get myself motivated to practice. Eventually I did a 5K. I paid for it dearly for quite awhile physically. But mentally I did not care, I was unashamedly high on pride and happiness!
I embrace the hope that the day will come, when I again entertain thoughts of running a race or, dare I say, marathon! It’s not fantastical; over the last several months, I went from needing a wheelchair a majority of the time to only needing one for long distances, after a long day, or when I’m having a flare. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that I could gain the strength to do another race. Those hopes, dreams, goals are fuel for anyone with an incurable, painful, and debilitating chronic illness.
I’m ecstatic that at the moment my brain fog is clearing and I can delve into the vocabulary vault in my brain once again, with clarity. I promise to use this knowledge wisely, and never write another sesquipedalian blog post! 😉