as it turns out

as it turns out, everything changes. what i’ve realized is, you don’t know you’re asleep until you wake up, just as you don’t know things are changing until they’ve already changed.

change is hard. life is hard. even as i write this, i’m struggling with my own sense of self and coming to terms with what was, what is and what may never be. we allow ourselves to be all-consumed by an ever-present “what if” and overcome with the what never was. so, let me start here:

when i was little, i had big dreams. i had big plans. i had ideas of changing the world and making things happen. i wanted things not just for myself, but for those around me. i imagined myself in this far-off land, taking care of sick and dying children and developing new cures for diseases. i wanted more. i wanted the things that my parents could never give me. i wanted more than poverty, child abuse, too many children and too little love made in our tiny shack. i wanted more. i would have more and i knew it.

i worked hard – harder than most people i’ve ever known. i avoided everything i came from. i ran from the life i knew to a life i wanted. it felt good. until i got sick, i don’t think i realized that i was running.

everything changes.

my brain changed overnight. my speech changed. my abilities changed. i wanted to scream to the world that i was still there. i wanted people to know that i still could – i could still be the person i set out to be. but i didn’t believe it anymore. maybe i still don’t. but i need to. i need to know that person still exists, somewhere, deep inside of me – there has to be a shadow of that person, right?

so, as it turns out, everything changed. i’m not the same anymore. maybe that’s ok. maybe it has to be ok. either way, it still changes.