A Change of Events

January 1, 2017 - 

I started this blog almost six months ago to document a new chapter in my life, and to share all of the experiences and lessons that come along with change.  While I have shared a lot on this blog, one thing that I haven’t been quite as open about is my health.  For the past few years, and specifically over the course of this year, I’ve dealt with chronic fatigue, an extremely common, yet highly misunderstood condition.  Essentially, chronic fatigue is of an unknown cause, and those who suffer from it often times experience prolonged tiredness, despite sufficent rest, as well as brain fog, muscle and joint pain, headaches, and a tendency to catch viruses.  Over the past year, this condition has become so severe for me, that it started to hold me back on a day to day basis.  I’ve chosen not to open up about this portion of my life, simply because it is something that I’m still struggling with at the moment, and while it is major and relevant to me right now, I don’t feel as if I have any insight, or particular advice to give. 

So why am I choosing to share all of this with you now?

For the next few months, I am going to be doing something that has always seemed extremely daunting and frightening to me: I’m going to focus on myself.  Instead of heading back to school for this next semester, I will be taking a temporary leave of absence, putting my own health first, and working on gaining back the strength that I once had.  I still plan on being productive by working, but at this point, being a student just isn’t the right choice for me.

While at this point, I don’t have any answers, I still want to write about it all.  This is the very reason that I started this blog – to be honest and raw, and to share the real moments.  It is really easy to make everything look picture perfect online, but it’s also important to remember that we’re all human, and sometimes most meaningful moments in life, that we gain the most insight from, aren’t the ones that are necessarily comfortable at the time. 

With that said, at this point, I’m not making any promises on how often I am going to be posting about this particular aspect in my life.  I want this blog to remain a positive space, where I post about things that I am passionate about, and things that make me happy.  I have loved creating this blog, and it has become a wonderful creative outlet for me.  Over the course of this year, I plan on continuing with this blog, and using the time off as an opportunity to make it even better.  I hope to come up with even more creative content, and look forward to bringing you all along with me on this change of events.

At this point, I think it is important to touch upon something that I have already learned from this entire experience.  In this day and age, it is so easy to get caught up in what is deemed as “normal” or “right”, and often times, we end up doing things that don’t make us happy, or aren’t ultimately beneficial to our own well being, simply because that is what we’re supposed to do according to the societal norm.  We all have fallen victim to these trends, and often find ourselves doing things specific ways, simply because that is the way that they are meant to be done.  It can be really hard to break away from these norms, and it can even be scary to do things differently.  For me, deciding to take time off from school was one of the most difficult and frightening decisions that I’ve ever made.  The very idea of not spending exactly four years in college, directly following high school, made me feel like a complete failure, and it wasn’t until I heard other people’s stories, that I realized that there are so many ways to go about it.  The fact that I am taking this time off to heal does not mean that I am a failure, and it doesn’t mean that I am any less of a person than someone who is in school.  I am taking my time, and listening to what I need at this point in my life.  Although I am not going to be in a classroom setting, I still have the opportunity to learn so much, and plan on using this time off to grow in a completely new way.

In one of my first blog posts, I touched upon the fact that life is filled with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns.  This is a perfect example of one of them, and while this leave of absence was definitely not something that I anticipated, I am going to make the very best of it, using it as yet another opportunity to grow.  Hopefully during this time, in addition to healing, I will be able to gain insight, and do some really cool things on my own.  I’ve never not been a student, so perhaps this is exactly what I need. 

Cheers!

-sb