My “why” is pretty simple. I started writing because I was going through something that no-one around me understood or could relate to. I thought if I could hash it out in carefully chosen words, I’d understand it myself and I wouldn’t need the understanding of others. Turns out, I rather like writing about my struggles and I don’t even have to be all that choosey with my words.
At the ripe age of 29, I find myself single (with absolutely no prospects in sight), living in the basement of my sister and her husband’s house, filled with children, and battling with; not one, but two vaguely diagnosed auto-immune diseases.
To say I lack in people who know what I’m going through would be an understatement.
It’s not that I’m freeloading or “still at home.” I have a grown-up job and pay rent. I have lived on my own a few times. I graduated top of my class with not one, but two degrees. One in American Sign Language and English Interpretation and the other Political Science, I gave the commencement speech and was awarded a prestigious internship at the library of congress in DC. When I got back, I had my own place, I’m perfectly capable of paying my own bills and adulting just fine. It’s the living alone I just can’t do.
About four years ago I started feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It scared me, so I’d stay the night at my sister’s, just to make sure I was okay. I had more and more bad days as my symptoms started becoming more and more prominent. My sister also has an autoimmune disease, so she came to my doctor appointments with me and would tell my doctor all the stuff I’d forgotten. It got to the point where It was easier to live with them, rather than pay rent for an empty apartment and spend several nights a week at their house. And let’s be real, I’m an awesome Aunt with baby fever and she could use the help with all her wee ones. It feels like home, it really does, but this isn’t what I saw for myself. This isn’t what I wanted from life.
And so… that brought me to writing. For one; because I was so tired of having to edit what I was saying to the people around me to make them more comfortable with my situation. Second, hoping these words reach someone who is in the same place as I am and assures them they’re not alone. I too am; almost Thirty, single, living in my sister’s basement, and vaguely diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases.