*Clicking Tongue* Hmm.

   Why that title? Because I don't know what else to call this post, haha. It's...well, you will see.

    Dear reader, I am going to disappear off of the Blog grid for a while, I think. I'm finally paying attention to my patterns and right now they are suggesting that I'm going to be updating this less and less often, and then drop off for a few months before updating again. ;) Some of you may already be familiar with this as I have done so at least twice, but perhaps more. I will still try to update periodically, but if I disappear for a few months instead of a week or two out of nowhere, you will know to expect it~ Apologies for any inconveniences this may randomly cause. I don't expect it to, but you also never know. XD One of you may look forward to my Blog and be disappointed for no updates. I know I have some followers, but I'm not sure if any of you desperately love my silly Blog that much. :)

    Anyway, I'm going through something interesting right now. I would call it an "identity crisis", except that I'm not really sure that it is. I initially equated it to a young person's mid-life crisis. I mean, I'm 21. So, *shrug* what the heck? I'm half way to my mid-life. So we can call this a Junior Mid-Life Crisis. XD But in all seriousness now.

    I could just say, “I might disappear for a few months, or I might only post every other week! We will find out eventually! Hahaha, sorry!” and leave it at that, but. I’m not. I…don’t talk about my poor health as often as I mean to. I…guess I just love having a Blog that isn’t dedicated to anything specific and can just be kind of silly and sometimes serious. Right now, this is serious. (As I’m sure you could tell, dear reader. ;) I just like to state the obvious~)

    I don’t talk about being sick because I don’t want to be defined by it. There are so many people that have either thought I was lying and let me know they wanted nothing to do with a liar, or…think that my trial is who I am. Being sick is who I am. And that is so far from the truth. There is so much more to me, if given the chance to show it. I am also shy, and not naturally comfortable with other people. Even Jo has to deal with that from me sometimes, and we have known each other since the second grade. So it does take time with me.

    But, when I am comfortable and not going through an extreme shy spell (which is what Jo and my family sometimes deal with), I can be a fun person to be around. I just need time to be comfortable, and I am not always given that. Anyway, back to what I was saying. There are people who stopped seeing me when I started deeper into illness. Some never saw me to begin with, and they don’t really matter (to me). And some that I met in the middle of being so sick never saw past my illness. Never saw past me being a borderline-invalid who still lives with her parents. To them, all I was is a sickly girl who needed special accommodations, constant supervision and support, who could die at the whiff of a perfume bottle – and “what more could there possibly be to her? Now, her parents. They are really strong people who I need to hear their story on how they cope with this trial, this burden.” I got overlooked a lot.

    Sometimes, I still do. Though, that is lessening the stronger and healthier I am getting. Dammit, how I wish I was exaggerating! It makes my blood boil and almost brings me to tears just thinking about it, just typing about it. I promise you, dear reader, that if we were talking about this in person, I would have broken out into tears. -///- This is a wound I have yet to heal from completely. The thing is, I know this is how others in my position or worse also get treated. It isn’t just me that they see that way – it’s all the sick children, men, and women of the world that they see that way. “I am not a burden.” I still need to repeat that sentence to myself from time to time.

    I am not a burden. I am not a burden.

    Maybe I am talking about this because there is someone out there who is going to read this and realize that they need to adjust their mindset a little. I don’t think everyone who has looked at me this way has done so in true judgment; they don’t think about it. I’m sure that if it were pointed out to them that their attitude was that way, they would be a little shocked and want to change. Some of them, I sincerely doubt would change because that is truly how they feel.

    Maybe there is someone out there who will read this who can identify with my feelings. Maybe they are also sick, maybe not. Maybe they are dealing with another trial that has become society’s definition of them and feel the same way. Maybe they just need to know that they aren’t alone and that someone, even if a stranger, understands…someone who may be a city over, a state over, a country over, or half-way across the world who they will probably never meet. But someone at least.

    Maybe there is someone out there who will read this and make a connection in their mind, “Oh! This must be how ______ must be feeling because of ________. Now I can understand better.”

    Or maybe…maybe I just need to get it out of my system. I don’t know. I just know that I want to talk about this for…whatever reason. It feels important for me somehow. I don’t like to make posts where I whine or rage or whatever negative emotion you will. I will do my best to not have it be too whiny, too “Woe is me! *dramatic hand-to-the-forehead*”

    One more thing before I start. This is not the story of my illness, just some of what I missed and explaining what I am going through right now as a result. Maybe…maybe someday I will share the story. I…don’t know. I don’t remember all of it, and what I do remember…I guess I just don’t like thinking about it too much, and I don’t really know where to start anyway. *shrug* Maybe someday. Maybe not. Time will tell, haha.

    Right, then:

    Because of illness in my teenage years, and general brain-fog when I wasn't sick (which is a misleading sentence; I was always sick. I just had days where it wasn't as bad, and was as close to "normal" as we were gonna get)...well, I just missed out on a lot. I wasn't...wasn't a teenager, I guess. I missed a lot of school, and that is something that gets talked about a lot when discussing how hard the allergies and illness have been.

    What maybe doesn't get thought about a lot, or at least vocalized by me...is that I didn't just miss chunks of school. I missed life. I lost time. I missed out on experiences and moments. I had friends I would go out with…but they usually only wanted to go out to some fast-food place or to sit in my backyard or my basement. Honestly, my activity-interests didn’t coincide with that. I am that person who would love to go free-climb up the side of a mountain for an activity and relish in the life-or-death adrenaline rush.

    Unfortunately, while I could still do that, most of the time no one was interested in doing such activities with me. Now…now I have lost that. I’m. I. I found out the hard way that it will be some time before I am able to be able to do such activities. Thinking about it, it makes sense why they chose to hang out with me. Well, sort of. No. It doesn’t. I won’t get into why it doesn’t. But, I was in a brain-fog often enough to not truly protest to sitting and watching anime or sitting and talking. And when I wasn’t in a brain-fog, I wasn’t well enough to move anyway. So, it suited their want to sit and do nothing well enough. Sad, really.

    Real quick: Yes, I had two boyfriends and a fling in my. One of them was long distance. One of them should have stayed a friend because I was too freaked out to act my brain-fog normal (“freaked out” meaning I thought I was going to say or do something wrong if I said or did anything) – and I’m pretty sure that he was also a little freaked in the same way. One of them was…well, not a great guy. >///> That was more than some of my friends had in the way of romance. I mention that because I want to acknowledge that there was some normalcy to my teenage years (and to stave off being whiny). I did get my first kiss when I was 16 where some didn’t. The thing that is sad about that, though, is that I knew I was attracted to them, but I didn’t feel the attraction. So, in a way, I was just going through the motions of what I had previously observed as normal behavior; boys like girls and girls like boys. They hold hands and they kiss. Sometimes they will be a “couple” which means that they only hold hands and kiss that one person. You know? It wasn’t as robotic as I am making it sound, but my hormone-development that allowed me to feel physical attraction didn’t actually kick in until a year ago.

    But some of what I missed out on with High School (besides a diploma) is getting asked out to a dance. Not getting a pity-set-up, but getting asked. Going to a Pep-Rally and understanding what a Pep-Rally is and why it’s supposed to be fun to go to one (instead of going and playing Poker, 21/Black Jack, War, and Egyptian Ratscrew under the stairway.. >.> Although that was fun too and earned some free lunches). Going to a date-dance stag with a bunch of gal-friends because we can. Doing stupid pranks or doing a Senior Prank. Faking being sick to get out of school. I never had to, and if I had had normal health I would have at least once just because every High School student feels like doing that at least once. Getting involved with a ton of Clubs and after-school activities. Going to a party instead of throwing my own. Getting a job and working and building up my bank account and learning proper work ethics. Feeling like I was capable of learning how to drive and getting a license. Saving up to go on some crazy road trip to nowhere with friends. Drama class. I took it. But I wasn’t “there” enough to…I just wasn’t “there”. I loved acting in Junior High, and still love it. But, I missed that once I got sicker; I lost my memory, my confidence, everything. I missed being capable of auditioning for something. Getting…to pick out a Prom dress. I know this is probably silly, superficial stuff. But this stuff, and so many more things, are what should make up a normal High School experience. There was a lot I missed. A lot I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand people.

    My corn allergy imitated Asperger’s Syndrome. No, I am not autistic. But at the time, I was. I couldn’t understand people in the way that most seemed to, and I do still sometimes struggle. I’m not autistic, but I did go through most of my life like I was because that is where my mind was. So now I am able to start understanding what I couldn’t, but…that’s the thing. A lot of people just instinctively know. I am having to learn that instinct, learn to trust that instinct, and am having to try and refine and hone that instinct enough to match my age. There are people that I wanted to be friends with and I was either too nervous to try or when I did, I didn’t…know what to do. Or I didn’t know that I was being socially awkward or too blunt or opinionated. I could have made different friends or more friends than what I did and probably had healthier friendships.

    The friends I made were all fellow social-outcasts, and that may be the only reason why I had friends. We pitied each other and formed a group of friends. I don’t think you could have found a group of friends who were more different than one another when it came down to it. We didn’t reject anyone, and our group grew with time. I counted it once; we had 20 people at the peak that were regularly part of our before-school and during-lunch group. Not all of them would hang out with each other, and not all of them sat with the group every day or twice a day (sometimes I wouldn’t), but we all talked and got along and put up with each other. This group started in Junior High and we made it through 6 years together, and, at times, because of each other. But…had it not been for the social outcasts drawing together, I know Jo would have been my only friend. Which wouldn’t have been a terrible thing. :)

    …But…to be…to the heart of the matter. We are Teenagers before we are Adults so that we can figure out who the hell we are. We have, in my mind, 7-9 years for that. Some people start when they are 11, some when they are 13, and then life doesn’t really start to feel like it is serious until 20. Part of that is experimenting with fashion taste. There is more to it than that, I know. But that is part of it, and I think the start of it. Using clothes to express ourselves and eventually, through that, discovering who we are as an individual. What our personality is, what our tastes are, what we find acceptable and unacceptable, how far we are willing to go to achieve our goals, what we want to do with life, how we fit in with others or how we stand out from others, if we prefer fitting in or prefer standing out, what makes us feel confident, how we achieve healthy self-esteem, what we like to do and don’t like to do, where we like to hang out and where we don’t like to hang out, how we handle ourselves in different situations and settings, if we like how people look at us or not and figuring out why we getting certain looks more often than others, how to roll with the punches and accept constructive criticism, what our passions and talents are, what we think is fun and what we think is dull, what our opinions on different topics are, where our morals start and end, what our beliefs are or aren’t, if we are more of a “fighter” or more of a “flyer” – and so, so much more.

     I can be an intense person and very opinionated. Sometimes too much so. I have high intelligence, though poor memory. I am a scatter-brain. I make promises I mean to keep but then five months later is when I finally remember that I made the promise in the first place. I then get embarrassed and flustered. I am said to have wisdom beyond my years. Etcetera. Yes, I know me. But, I don’t either. I don’t know. I just know that I am only just now starting to enter into that part of my personal development. I didn’t develop normally, and I probably should have anticipated that a part of my allergy-healing was going to include this. I mean, if the allergy prevented a natural developmental process, it makes sense that one of the stages of healing would be that that natural process can finally start and do its thing. I’m discovering that I like cute things and I like being feminine and that, dammit, I like rainbow-colored tutus. For example. >///> Haha.

    It has been a little strange. I’ve always, always felt that part of my brain not being developed. I can tell when those connections aren’t being made and that there is stunted growth. Right now, I can feel my brain working to fix those underdeveloped pieces. So, where am I with life right now? That I don’t completely know who I am. I feel lost and a little confused. I feel small and overwhelmed, but I also feel devil-may-care and a little rebellious. I feel like I can do whatever I want to do, and find that exciting. But I also feel like I don’t completely know where or how to start and that frustrates me. I feel clueless about men and don’t completely understand the butterflies in my stomach and how to deal with them – or why seeing this cute guy makes my knees feel weak and my cheeks red and why looking at him sends warm fuzzies all through me and makes me feel tongue-tied. I feel ambitious and impatient about making my dreams happen. I feel like anything can be achieved, and I’m a little nervous underneath my confidence. I also feel up and down moody, which is normal for me, but it also feels a little different. I’m…21 years old, and I think this is how I should have been feeling about life and things when I was a teenager.

    I lost time. And that is a real problem of teenage illness and allergy. Certain parts of our brain and body developments have to go through neglect in order for us to stay at least somewhat functional and in order for us to fight to stay alive. So….

    Anyone out there who is reading this right now who was that sick as a teenager, you aren’t alone and I think you should just let yourself go through that natural process no matter what it takes. For me, I’m currently at the “experimenting with fashion” phase. Sometimes it’s a bad outfit that isn’t ever repeated. Currently, I am looking at getting a multi-colored, pastel tutu and a necklace with a pastel polymer clay shooting-star. Should I be embarrassed? Probably. But, I am not. I can feel a part of myself receiving nurturing that needs it, so I’m just going with it. If I can do that tutu, you can do anything you need to do. :)

    Any teenagers who are reading this right now who are dealing with illness: It does get better. It may take time and a lot of tears and frustration and heartache, but it will get better. You are going to get better, you are going to get stronger, you are going to start living life to the fullest – you are going to be beautiful and stunning and resilient. You are going to have wisdom and compassion that you wouldn’t have otherwise. You are going to live – not just exist. For every down, there is an equal and opposite up. So, dammit, life is going to be amazing for you. Smile and be positive when you can, but don’t be afraid to indulge yourself in tears and screaming into your pillow. Don’t ever give up. And know that it is never too late to grow. If you miss a part of self-discovery the way I have, just know that it is on the way. It just got delayed for a little while. :) And remember that no matter what some people may say or how you may feel at times, you are NOT a burden and you never have been or will be. You just need a little help standing up right now – and there is nothing wrong with that. But when you are able to stand on your own two feet and simply be you, you are going to be a powerful force to reckon with. You are going to be unstoppable at achieving your dreams and living life. And those who supported you are going to cry tears of joy and feel blessed for having been part of your journey. You will also have so much more opportunity for doing good than you would have otherwise, because you understand this side of life. I always say that a painful past is a tool waiting to be used for good. :) Just remember what Fa Zhou in Mulan said when you start getting down, “My, my… What beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one’s late. But I’ll bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all.” That is not a philosophy, but a fact. I promise you. <3

    Anyone reading this who has someone in their life dealing with something hard that may be depriving them of certain aspects of living: Don’t overlook them and who they are. What they struggle with isn’t all that is to them. Support them, be patient with them, be kind to them, love them because maybe they aren’t getting loved enough, talk to them and acknowledge them as a person…just…be understanding, please. And do not ever, ever call them a burden.

    Side rant: At no point should anyone call someone a burden, ever. Probably anyone who has ever committed suicide was seen as a burden by at least one person, and that was part of what led to their decision to die. Maybe it wasn’t someone they were close to, and maybe it was only once. But they were at a point where all it took was once from one stupid person to convince them that was the case. The next time you go to call someone a burden, bear that in mind before you speak. You never know where someone’s state of mind is. Mini-soap box done.

    So, basically: I’m figuring myself out, and…my Blog is not a priority for me at this time in my life. I will try to update, but I won’t promise anything. If I disappear for a few months or even a year, that is why. (It won’t be a year, haha.)

    In any case, whatever hardships you may be dealing with, dear reader, I wish you much luck and comfort. <3

Have a kind and cherished day, dear reader, and a beautiful New Year.

Much love,

Bryn