I often lay in bed and just retrace everything that has happened in the past 5 years for me. There are moments I want to relive and there are moments that puzzle me, as to why they ended this way. 

There are people that have gone from my main priority to struggling to hold on to whatever is left. I went from making other people’s lives my own to facing my life with an open chest. 

I then think about my childhood and how things I’ve witnessed, things I’ve been deprived of and situations that have left me scarred, left me here somehow breathing today. No doubt, these experiences are resurfacing and causing pain and confusion in my womanhood. 

What does it feel like to be truly accepted? What does it feel like to not where a mask in your own home? What does it feel like to own yourself and build a wall with bricks and not burn like hay? What does it feel like, to feel?

I’ve always heard “everything happens for a reason” and I can’t say that enough this year more than ever. I have seen my life take a 360 and I was getting tired of not feeling like I was valid. In the healing process, I knew that had to come from inside of me; but can you fault me for not still wanting the most important people to understand me? Or even you?

Doesn’t it hurt when all you do is take care of other people and you’re leaving yourself open to every jab life throws at you? Let’s just stop there. Everyone’s story is painful and I will never exhaust my words to make that known. 

There are still parts of me that I can’t fully express to the world and that bothers me. There are people I want to mention but I can’t and that saddens me. I want to let you in but I can’t and that makes me feel alone. 

I am in a place that I don’t want to be. 

I’ll elaborate on this though and I’m sure if some eyes saw this they wouldn’t approve but what the heck. This is my life and I’ll open as much as I can. 

I’m not working right now, as a matter of fact I can’t. Since April of this year, my body has took a turn that I have never felt. I’ve explained to many of my supporters that I have Multiple Sclerosis and how challenging it can be. I am only 25 and saying that I can’t work makes me feel extremely useless. 

A girl like me dreams of working hard, saving money and getting married. But now I have to focus more on what the next step is to take care of myself. I’m struggling to get health insurance, I’m on no medication to keep the pain at bay for my body, I’m tired of taking injections all over my body and leaving me with scars, I’m done with my anxiety taking over my precious independence that I have left. 

And yet what am I doing despite that pain?

I am pushing and pushing so that I won’t disappoint myself, so that my parents don’t feel I’m being a burden, so that I can prove to others that I can still do it. But deep down it hurts everyday to wake up, to walk or move. I get tired of beating myself up for not being able to commit to plans I make, I get tired of feeling judged because I look normal on the outside and I get tired of feeling like my situation has no place in the air. 

Yes this is me complaining. Yes this is me venting but so much because what I say and feel matters. I have to help myself realize that I DO MATTER. 

I had to tell myself that I AM BEAUTIFUL. I had to tell myself that my body doesn’t make me who I am if I lose or gain weight on and off. I had to tell myself that if people care and love me, they will support me; and it’ll be a few amount. It all boiled down to ME. 

So this is who I am. I write and I push to be positive and I share my story to make people feel they are in a warm place. But don’t be fooled, some wounds heal and some are just like chronic pain. 

But here’s the most beautiful thing about it all: it’ll make me so strong and so powerful. I’m just loading my full potential.