A to Z April Blogging Challenge Reflections

With chronic illness looming over our heads every day, it is so easy to go into survival mode. All we start caring about is making it through one more day, hour, or even minute. Our main purpose in life becomes trying to find relief for our symptoms and a way to cope. In reality, though, if we allow ourselves to remain in survival mode, we actually cease to live. We forget to laugh, enjoy, and dream. We forget that life has a purpose and that we have an obligation to discover that purpose.

The A to Z April Blogging Challenge has helped me realize that I have been losing faith in my future and in my dreams. Fibromyalgia hijacked my life over 4 years ago, and a part of me is still there. I am still in shock that I am now disabled. I am still left wondering what is left for me since my body no longer can handle even everyday chores at times. And a part of me is too afraid to dream and hope for a better tomorrow again.

I guess I had assumed that if I rested and did this or that that I’d get a handle on my fibromyalgia and I could go back to living again. I had assumed that once my symptoms were more under control, I could go back to finish my education, start my criminal justice career, and pursue my writing dreams. But for whatever reason, my fibromyalgia is still going strong—and unwittingly, I’ve allowed it to convince me that my dreams are no longer valid.

Well, the 2013 A to Z Challenge has given me an addictive taste of freedom. I may be a prisoner in my body at times and fibro fog may interfere with my mind, but I am meant for more than this. I am meant to dream. I am meant to imagine. I am meant to share my thoughts and ideas. I am meant to stay true to myself and to write to my heart’s content.

From now on, I promise myself to not allow my chronic illness to sabotage my dreams and deepest desires. I long to write every day and that’s what I plan to do. Some days I might only manage a few minutes, but I won’t allow my fibromyalgia to steal another part of my life away. This is my life. No matter how much I hurt or how fatigued I become, I choose to actively live it.

Will you join me today and tell your chronic illness that enough is enough? Will you once again dream with me and embrace again the things that you love? Chronic illness may have changed the way we must live, but let us never again allow it to keep us from living!