i am nothing like i should be

ME

There are so many things about myself that were never part of the plan. You know, that unspoken one that you just intrinsically have, the one that every so often you get to look back at and laugh at your own naivety.

You can ask anyone in my family about my life plans as a child, and they could probably tell you my exact plans for the future, my own personal “12 Steps to Success”. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew who I wanted to be. Picture this:

A seven year old, far too serious for her own good, tells you that she wants to go to the University of Surrey to study veterinary medicine in college. It’s a mental image that seems so far away from the brown-haired child in front of you that you can’t quite help but laugh.

A child has their life more mapped out than you ever did.

It’s honestly quite funny, and I don’t know how more adults didn’t look into my baby-fat face and just laugh. The only real response that I would ever get was “things don’t always go as planned”.

I knew that.

I didn’t plan for whatever had happened that week that had made me fight with my friends. What my mom had brought home for dinner that night was not what I had expected her to.

And when I said this, they would just laugh more.

You’ll understand when you’re older.

When you’re older.

What I didn’t think would happen when I was older was the fact that I would become one of the things that I thought I’d never become. I thought that I was going to be super physically fit, in the peak of health, that if I got sick, it would be for a few days, hurt, for a few months. I did not expect to develop a tremor disorder to a severity that affects every single part of my damn life. I write, I speak, I move, I climb, I exist with a tremor.

I cannot run away from it, I cannot hide from everything that it changes.

How am I supposed to explain that to myself?

Dear me, you are not going to be the success story that you thought you’d be?

That’s disheartening to say, even to some sort of past version of myself.

I’m not really going to lie and say that I definitely don’t have a plan now, that getting progressively worse is something that has made me completely reconsider my own life and live freely or whatever. I’m holding out hope--somewhat. Maybe one day I’ll be better. Maybe one day I’ll be able to say that I did something right, that for some reason or another, I stopped shaking.

I don’t say this to scare you (me?). I really say this as a kind of example. You’ll understand when you’re older.

But the thing that being sick does teach you, if sick is the right word, is that literally nothing you do is granted, no matter how much you love it. I love[d] rock climbing. I also haven’t climbed in four years. I love[d] drawing and graphite art. Over the past 6 months or so, I’ve lost the ability to draw like that. I’d love (this time without the arbitrary past-tense) to do those things again.

I’m rambling. But my best guess is that we both know that I have a point buried in here somewhere. And that point is this: You are a child, albeit one who plans out pretty much every detail of your life. You have so many plans that you don’t quite know how to put them into words. You don’t know exactly how they’re all going to work out, but for the love of God, you have a plan. And I’m here from the future to say that that’s good, it’s going to get you through some tough spots mentally, but you’re also going to have to let it go.

You are not going to be who you think you are. You are not going to have the body that you think that you will. You will not have the capabilities to do the things that you have certainly always taken for granted. But you’re going to be okay. I promise. It’s going to suck, big time, and you’re going to want to quit so many times, all because your perfect plan isn’t working. You’re okay.

Adapt.

Adapt.

It might feel completely impossible, but you’ll do it. It’s gonna suck, but you’ll do it.

-With much love,

Me.