Phases

Sometimes it feels like I've lived four different lives. From childhood to adulthood, it seems like ive become such a different person over time. Much more than just the physical, my mind has matured so much. I've had so many failures and success's.I sometimes feel like I should be older than my actual age because all of my hospital experiences and tap dancing with death more than your average 25 year old. But throughout all those experiences, my fighting soul has always been present.

My child hood was like a dream. Literally, that part of my life now seems like a dream. Life was so innocent back then, I thought the news was just a show of stories. I didn't have to worry about the world issues, or insurance plans, my biggest worry was remembering to brush my teeth everyday. I came from a two parent home which over time has become almost nontraditional. If we ever struggled ,my parents made sure we never knew about it. I don't have a sad or struggling childhood story to tell because my life was great. The most trouble I'd really gotten in was forging my bad report cards in middle school, and even then my parents couldn't stay mad at me long. My parents were my safe haven, they still are. They were my cushion when I slipped up, the tissue to my tears... I'm so happy I got to have a normal childhood, innocent, protected from the world by my parents, I felt like nothing could touch me as long as they were around.

That's why as I got older and started to see the world and people for what they were, I was heart broken. My transition from teenage hood to adulthood was far different from my childhood. Life didn't ease me away from childhood, it ripped me away. I went from a happy, confident, eccentric child too a sick, confused adult. I was a college sophomore when I became a mother and was diagnosed with lupus, I felt like I was just getting started. I was just learning to be alone on my own, how to not have to run to my parents for everything, doing things on my own time. But when my 20's came along, life had got real. The façade of what I thought was life was unveiled. I seen that the news wasn't just a show. I seen that the world doesn't run off love and hugs, it runs off money and we only live great lives when you work and pay for it.

Working, what most adults do. Watching my friends move on to graduate, starting their careers made me feel like i'd almost never grown up, I felt like the only grown up part of me was being a mother. I felt left behind, sick and useless and keeping up with social media watching my peers made it worst.

I went through a period of time when I had to delete my social media. It gave me false standards of where I was supposed to be in life in my early 20's. All my peers were moving on driving, purchasing their own places, and me I was doing the opposite. Having to move back in with my parents and not even alone, with my child. Although I should have been thankful for having a place called home to go back to, I couldn't help but to dwell on the fact I felt like I had taken ten steps back in life and being sick made me feel even more like I had to depend on them.

Deleting my social media actually helped a lot. I realized that everyone has different lives, circumstances and phases. My life changed after childhood, but that doesn't mean it was over, My path changed but that doesn't mean I have to change my final destination. It shaped me into the adult I have become today. My dreams didn't move the way I wanted them to or in the order but they are now starting to fall into place. It also led me down another path that  would have never fathomed. Having my own non-profit lupus organization, giving back.

Going through different phases have molded me into who I am today, strong, optimistic, and humbled. I wont ever stop dreaming or making plans for myself because although things have turned around for me and I am happy but this is just a phase too. This wheelchair thing is just a phase that I will one day look back on such as all the other phases in my life. I just have to remember to not get caught up and too comfortable in this phase because I know the best is yet to come...