My Life "Plans" Have Been Reduced to, Basically, Just a Blob: A Spoonie's Thoughts from May

It's the end of the month, already? Where did the time go?! I have SO many jobs on my to-do list still itching to have a line scratched through them. Do you ever feel like there's just too much to do and not enough time to do it all? Or is that just me??

Well, those jobs will just have to wait a little bit longer, 'cuz today I'm busy blogging! To wrap up this crazy month of quarantine and final exams, I decided to join the awesome link-up party going on over at A Chronic Voice. Time to dive deep and share my thoughts, y'all! Here goes:

1. FORESEEING
Who else out there is a control freak? I always want to know EXACTLY what the plan is and exactly how I fit into that plan. By the age of thirteen, I knew exactly what I wanted my college major (and minor) to be, exactly how many kids I wanted to have, and exactly everything about every other detail in between. My life was all mapped out and I simply had to put in the work to make my dreams happen.
Then one day, God must have taken a look at that bullet-point outline of my life and laughed until His sides hurt. Next, He decided it was time for me to learn a little bit about trusting Him instead of myself. So that's how my puny little plans saw the warmer end of a blowtorch. My dad lost his job, my family fell apart, and everything just kinda went downhill from there. And then I thought it couldn't get worse, but it did. Chronic illness hit my body like a truck while a deep, dark depression wrapped its tendrils around my mind. 
Fast-forward to today. Some things are better, but other issues in my life remain as broken as the day they started. My chronic illness, for one thing, has decided that it is here to stay. Yet at the same time, I've also been granted blessings which I never would have expected or deserved in a million years. 
All this is to simply say: I have absolutely no idea what I foresee in my future.



Just take a deep breath and go hold a fuzzy baby goose.
Because everyone raises baby geese in their backyard... right?
Oh wait, maybe that's just my family!! :D

June marks my twenty-first birthday. I'm not thirteen anymore and I definitely don't have my life all planned out anymore.
But you know what? That's okay.
There's nothing wrong with living life one day at a time. Especially when the population of the world gets hit with a huge, mysterious pandemic that spreads fear and panic faster than the virus itself. It's okay not to know everything during this time. Instead, just breathe. Stop worrying for a moment and look around you. Smell the spring flowers and hold a fuzzy baby goose. Enjoy today just for today, and let tomorrow deal with its own troubles. 
Now, I definitely still have one eye on the {very fuzzy} future. I'm still studying hard to earn my college degree. I'm still saving money so I can someday gain some semblance of financial stability. I'm still investing in relationships with the people whom I love. And I'm still trying, as painful as it may be sometimes, to grow deeper in my relationship with God. These are the things in my life that will never change.

But apart from those things, it is my goal to set aside my control-freak tendencies. I don't want to waste my precious energy by making plans that are just gonna get derailed anyway. Because here's the hard truth: My body's absolute unpredictability makes my whole life unpredictable. Even just this morning, the simple task of picking spinach in the garden got cut short when my legs abruptly decided that they were too shaky and weak to support my body anymore. And just like that, my plans for the day were obliterated and I spent the next five or six hours in bed. 
I never know when my POTS is going to rear its ugly head and trash my plans. So I've honestly kinda learned not to make too many plans in the first place. My life "plans" have been reduced to, basically, just a blob. But I rest assured, because I know that my Father in Heaven does have a plan for me. And that divine plan for my life is so much more perfect than anything my little brain could ever concoct. 
2. UPBRINGING
I was always taught to be tough. 
"Oh, you fell off your bike a scraped your knee? Well, crying about it won't fix anything. You know where the peroxide and band-aids are -- go inside and fix yourself up." 
Now, don't get me wrong. I truly love my mom, and she has many great qualities. However, sympathy for my hurts wasn't exactly her strong suit when I was a kid. 
And I learned from her. I learned that pain was a bother, that blood was an inconvenience. I learned to silence my body's messages because I thought they weren't worthy of being heard. I was a tough girl. Nothing could break me.

And then... it did. My POTS started subtly enough, but I didn't listen. I figured I was just a normal sleep-deprived college student. So then my POTS decided to make me listen. It hit me in full force and left me utterly, completely broken. And no band-aid in the world was big enough to fix this new boo-boo.
Today, I have learned to play a strange balancing game. On the one hand, I ignore my pain and dizziness and aching and everything else going wrong in my body at any given moment so that I can at least pretend to have a normal life.
But on the other hand, I've learned to always be acutely aware of the sensations swarming my mind. Every new symptom I feel -- every muscle spasm, every headache, every blackout -- receives careful evaluation: Is this nausea on my "normal" spectrum, or is it worse than normal? Do I need to call my doctor? What about this blasted headache -- is that a new feeling, or is that just another old familiar symptom for me?
Each day is a struggle as I play this brutal balancing game. If a symptom is new or worse than before, I talk to my doctor and run some tests. I don't want to miss something that could easily be caught by my doctor. But if the symptom is just another part of my everyday POTS journey, I don't bother my doctor. He's already helping me as much as he can, anyway. I just take my medicine, drink a huge glass of water, and tough it out. Just like I did when I was a little kid. 
3. SOOTHING
The panic of quarantine. The stress of final exams. And the annoyance of more doctor appointments than I expected this month (Apparently I have a cyst in my wrist?? So my body is just making little bubbles inside itself... cool.). Needless to say, I've been desperate for a little soothing this month. 
As much as I would rather not admit it, let's be honest here: my first coping mechanism is Netflix. But endless quarantine means endless Netflix, and I can only binge-watch Riverdale for so long. 
So I've been trying to steer away from the automatic habit of pulling up Netflix on my phone and checking my brain out for the day. Instead, I'm trying to find activities that are soothing but also constructive. Here's my top three:

1. Turning off distractions and focusing on God. I wish Bible study was my automatic coping mechanism, because it definitely heals my mind a whole lot more than Netflix ever could. Time to make new habits, right? Lately I've been reading a free devotional from Matt Redman called 10,000 Reasons. I also just bought a new guided prayer journal last week, and I've already started inking up its pages. It's so satisfying and so healing at the same time. 
2. Getting covered in fun paint colors. I absolutely love the satisfaction of signing my name on a finished painting. I know it's not April anymore, but this month I just discovered The Art Sherpa's free collection of Acrylic April 2020 tutorials. And I'm loving it! I love listening to quiet music or nature sounds while I focus my mind on the colorful pigments my brush holds. Sometimes, though, I'm not sure if I get more paint on myself or on my canvas. That's what showers are for, right? Oh wait... I don't have the energy to take a shower. Guess I'll just be covered in paint for a bit! :)
3. Breaking a sweat on my yoga mat. I used to love running, but POTS took that away from me. So after two years of forgoing exercise, I've decided to kick that lazy, lie-around-all-day-and-not-move habit. After a quick YouTube search, I found Yoga with Adriene's free 30 Day Yoga Journey for 2020. I'm taking things slowly and carefully (definitely gonna take me a bit longer than 30 days), but I am pleased to already feel just a little bit stronger than I was last month. So that's my goal: one step at a time. One step at a time is one step closer to my goal than I was one step ago. 

All of this sums up just a small peek at what I've been up to this past May. I'm feeling hopeful as the calendars flip to June. Guess we'll have to wait and see what comes next, right? I can't wait!

In the meantime, my friend, stay strong. Try not to stress out too much about whatever is around the corner for you. Regardless of what comes, I'm praying for you.

Bonjé

__________

P.S. How would you respond to the writing prompts of foreseeing, upbringing, and soothing? How are you feeling about the month ahead -- hopeful, anxious, overwhelmed... or all of the above? Join the conversation in the comments below!

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