All I intended to be

All that I intended to be, is lost to the past.

Sometimes I can't stand seeing the world around me, this place that I live in. Everything is a reminder of the 'healthy' me, the 'old' me.

There, over there, that's the street I used to ride my bike down, the wind in my hair, complete freedom – the same street I rode straight into a pole and lay laughing on the ground, my friend laughing with me until our tummies hurt so much we could laugh no more.

Everything is a reminder of the 'healthy' me, the 'old' me.
Sometimes I cannot stand it, it drives me insane.

Outside my window, looking out from the bed I'm forced to spend so much time in, there's my street, memories of walking – or running – down there with my surfboard, body board, or just a towel with my best friend desperate for a swim to escape the harsh summer heat.

We were once in separable...

There, there's my school. The school where I was both the 'old' me and the 'new' me, I am no longer sure who is the real me. All that I ever was, it was stripped away from me overnight. We'll drive past while kids are dressed in their PE uniform running the cross country course. It is like a stab to my heart, every time. In them, I see myself. I see my old self running, like a ghost from the past.

Out the back, there's my garden. It's there I used to let off steam in the afternoon shooting hoops. Kicking a ball around, mucking around with friends. It was so normal to have endless energy.

There, there's the beach. The beach where I spent every afternoon after school, swimming, getting smashed on the surfboard, sucked out around by the whirlpool that appeared in the early evenings. The beach I ran along at 6am in the morning before school, watching the sunrise over the ocean.

I want to erase it all, these ghosts of the past. Sometimes I want to smash it all to pieces, get as far away from here as possible, because the anger and hurt takes over and I feel like screaming that I cannot take it anymore.
Illness changes everything. It steals your identity. It stole my teenage years, ripped them away, over before their time, it's stealing my youth, out of my control. You find out who your real friends are, it hurts so much to lose people who you once considered your closest of friends.

I want to live what most take for granted. Study full time, get assignments done on time (even if you start them the night before), achieve marks to my full potential, be able to go out with friends, have a job, drive a car, do all those priceless things I took for granted all those years ago, back when I was healthy, luckier than I knew. I want to be able to get out of bed every day, I want to feel alive, I want to be free of pain. Just the pain alone is suffocating me. Pushing me to my limit.

I would do anything for just one more day of health, just imagine the things I could do!

All that I intended to be, is no longer what I strive to be.
I want to be so much more than I once intended to be.

The grief for what I've lost over these years will never leave me, it will always hurt, but I've let go. Not completely, it surfaces from time to time, without warning, but I know that after all I have been through I am better for it. Life seems so much better on the other side, the girl that I was, she wasn't the lucky one – I am. Not that I can always see it.

If you have your health, don't take it for granted. It is more precious than you can possibly comprehend until you've lost it. Please, never waste it.


Sometimes, I do get sick of having to put on a facade to the outside world, to conceal the hell I deal with everyday being in my own body, and the behind the scenes that no one gets to see. People can't understand what they can't see, they can't understand how ill you are if its not visible, if they only see you when you're able to get out of the house, they can't comprehend that you're in agony everyday when you look just fine. But still, I prefer to just smile and get on with things. I hope through my writing though, people can understand it just a little more... even the invisible.