Hey, guys.
So, uh, I’m kinda back from dropping off the face of the earth. This has been one of the oddest years of my life, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. Still trying to find all the lessons tucked in the seams that stitch it together. Trying to learn what kind of thread was used, what that impossibly soft square of fabric is, how to keep from pricking my finger with the needle. How to memorize it all, learn from it all.
Gather ’round, boys and girls. It’s story time.
This may come across as random at first, but I have a point. Just hang in there:
Once upon a time, there was this girl – this anomaly of an only-child homeschooler. Through elementary and middle school, she was involved with church, homeschool groups, and extracurricular activities. She was often the quiet kid in the room, but it was more of the healthy quietness of a cautious young girl trying to grow into a fully-functioning person.
When the girl was thirteen, her parents got divorced, which pushed her dad to move a couple of hours away – mostly losing touch – and her mom to get a job outside of the home. Her mom debated about what to do with the girl’s schooling from there, as she wouldn’t be home as much to help with it, but the girl fought hard to continue homeschooling. The thought of public school was terrifying to her. She knew she could get through school on her own.
So her education morphed from a variety of handpicked textbooks to an online program, but the girl was able to stay home.
Life moved forward, albeit more complicated than before. The girl lost touch with some of her closest friends. She didn’t get her driver’s license until she was eighteen, so she wasn’t able to leave the house until after her mom got home each day. Her life revolved around her room.
But she adapted well. Maybe too well.
The girl was able to become her own best friend. A silent house was peaceful over eerie. The freedom to conduct her own schedule was a dream. There were endless ways to keep herself entertained. She learned how to be alone and like it; a thing everyone should master at some point in their lives.
However, somewhere along the way, the girl stopped relying on people. To need another human was a certain weakness. Cynicism reigned over relationships, and she began questioning the intentions and genuineness of others. She doubted her own worthiness and sank further and further into a hole of seclusion. Making real connections with people was something she always struggled with, but in this reclusive state of independence, she all but stopped making new friends. Without taking the initiative to reach out to previously-established relationships, the girl sort of drifted further and further away from everybody.
She did run to writing though. The harder life got, the lonelier she felt, the harder she wrote, and the more she retreated from people.
The girl started to wonder if she would ever even reach a point in her life where she’d be able to nurture a new relationship of any kind successfully. If she would ever feel comfortable opening herself up to a new soul. If she would ever find another person she would choose over solitude.
She worried that maybe this was all life held for her. That perhaps God had put this deep appreciation for sequestration in her soul because her life was created for something rather unusual and rather alone. But she trusted God as solidly as she could, and she accepted it, and that was that.
If you’ve been following along with my blog, then you already know that earlier this year, I was dealing with chronic hives. They popped up out of nowhere and plagued my skin with itchy red welts every single day and night. Trying to pinpoint the cause, I went borderline crazy examining everything that came in contact. My diet changed to strictly wholesome, organic meat and a specific list of vegetables and fruit. No dairy, gluten, processed food of any kind, eating out, sugar, nuts, carbs, coffee, joy, or happiness. Nothing.
Two months went by, and the hives still hadn’t cleared up, so stubborn, doctor-rebelling me went to see a holistic doctor. She recommended twenty-five things I should get tested for, so I cried my way through more blood work than I ever expected to encounter in my young life, then waited, praying for answers.
Strangely, the very next day, before I was diagnosed with anything or given a single treatment plan of any kind, the hives disappeared and haven’t been back since. I still have no idea what caused them. I have no idea why they went away. It’s like God needed something to push me to see a doctor, and took it away once I finally complied.
Because something was wrong.
Really wrong.
The blood tests showed I have lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever, and mycoplasma pneumonia; three chronic, rather serious, hard-to-treat diseases that I more than likely picked up from a tick at some point in my life. The fact that I have autoimmune issues complicates the matter.
I’m on longer-term antibiotics, natural remedies, vitamins, and supplements. The game plan is to keep taking them for a few months, then get tested again to see where we’re at. It’s been a couple of months already, and I know my body hasn’t healed yet. I still don’t feel great. I think it’ll be a while before I’m able to close this particular chapter in my life.
It’s also recommended that I keep following the strict diet. I initially got through it with the solace that it was a temporary remedy for my body, and that someday I could go back to eating a bit more like every other young adult. Now I’m being told it would be in my best interest to keep eating like this forever. Only, no more red meat, because evidently, rocky mountain spotted fever has a history of making people allergic to it. It’s hard. I’ve been that girl crying in a restaurant over a bland, rather empty, dressing-less salad because I just want regular food so bad that I hate any sort of life without it.
In theory, this has been one of the worst years of my life. The first half of the year, I was dealing with the most terrible bout of depression I’ve ever experienced. I finally got past that just in time for all this more medical stuff to start.
But I’ve actually been feeling pretty great mentally. This is the first time I’m writing about any of this, a solid two months later. I haven’t felt the need to write so much about anything lately because I’ve felt entirely fulfilled by human relationships. It may seem silly to imagine, or understand, or relate, but it’s a pretty big deal to me; to be able to have a small handful of people to trust, rely on, and communicate.
I’ve never experienced this in my adult life to this degree, and wow.
The past three months have been some of the very best of my life. I fully mean that. People have been so good and sweet and kind and caring to me, and I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but that’s grace for ya.
The biggest, most colorful square that I’ve discovered in this quilt of a year is that we weren’t created to be completely solitary creatures. It’s amazing what love, support, and companionship can get us through. I almost think I needed the bad in my life so the good could outshine everything so strongly.
That girl I was telling you about earlier?
She no longer doubts her ability to nurture new relationships.
She’s learning how to let people in. How to communicate on a healthy level.
She can choose company over solitude and love it.
She no longer worries that she’s going to always be alone.