When You Don't Know What to Say to Me When You Find Out I'm Ill

Your questions have been stinging my heart. As I lay here and it’s almost two in the morning…I am still replaying the last few hours in my head:

“Are you in school?”

“How is your engineer degree going?”

“Are you still living in the city?”

“What are your plans for the future?”

People don’t know how to react to me…Or what to say to me, and frankly, that hurts me the most.

“I had to medically withdraw for the last year and a half,” I say with a smile on my face.

Life got hard.

As I lay here and go over all these life questions I have been asked tonight, I think of all the blank stares and the silence I received after that response.

What am I doing with my life?

I ask myself this question everyday. I use to have every aspect of my life planned out. God has a funny sense of humor. Now I am learning a new me.

I am not ashamed of my life. I am not going to pretend my life is all dandy. I have fought hard to be literally standing here right in front of you.

So please don’t stare at me like I am some misplaced object that you are baffled by. Or dismiss my misfortunate events. I give you honesty, because I am tired of tiptoeing around this.

Yes, I have had struggles and will have more struggles. No, this isn’t over and won’t be over for the rest of my life. Yes, I know I am too young, but I don’t think I have much of a say in this really.

I am doing OK. I am going to go to school eventually, I am going to figure out who I am, and what my life is now. I have a different life path than the one I had planned.

I am finally becoming OK with that.

You can be OK with that too.

Love,

A girl with some bad hips.

We want to hear your story. Become a Mighty contributor here.