I’m not a timid person. I was the kid who got stuck on the roof of the neighbor’s house because the impulse to climb over rode any thoughts of safety. I still walk right up the big scary strange dogs because I know they wouldn’t dare bite me. I have never let fear stop me.

But I have let illness stop me. I was 10 years old when I was diagnosed with arthritis. The form of arthritis was misdiagnosed until just under a year ago. So….hold on, I’m doing math…I was incorrectly treated for…damn it where’s my calculator….25 years. My iffy health and dependency on very expensive meds (and therefore health insurance) kept me in my home town because I had a support system here. My folks, their friends, my friends were all here to help when my Rheumatoid Arthritis took me out of commission. 

Somehow, the years flew past and all those things that I’d planned to do “someday” got pushed further and further into the background in the name of getting by. Right before my 30th birthday things sort of clicked in my head and I woke up. I saw that I was suddenly not going to be in my 20s anymore and and worked for years – really most of my life as I entered the workforce at 13 when I started working at a local stable. I had all this work behind me and nothing to show for it. I was rather upset with myself.

The first thing I did was search for and find both my birth parents (we’ll save that story for another post, k?). That took a few years. Then I went back to school. Which I of course screwed up at first. I started a master’s program in Social Work because I thought, “Hey, I’d be good at that and earn a good living.” Wrong thinking there moron. One massive panic attack later and a good come-to-Jesus meeting with myself and I’d dropped out. It took a bit more soul searching but I finally found a program that focused on the one thing in this world that I loved most – writing. 

Now, halfway through a master program focused on Creative Writing, I’ve started making plans for the first time in many a year. I will get out of this dead end town. I will break away from the people who will always see me as that poor thing with RA. I will not worry about medical insurance, income and what the future with RA may bring. Those are God’s worries not mine. I trust that He will see me though the hard times so long as I’m doing the one thing that feels His purpose for me – writing.

I will write myself out of a life I never wanted and into the world I’ve always wanted to join. 

I will write.