Virginia Woolf once said, “If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.” When I write, that is what I try to do. I try to tell my truth. I try to make sure that when I tell my story, I try to be unapologetically truthful. I talk about things we all try to keep hidden, anxiety, depression, mental health awareness, etc.. I try not to be redundant in my writing, and I try my hardest to be relatable. To let others know that they’re not alone. We all have heavy stuff we carry.

My life has been filled with heaviness. Heaviness that I have a hard time sharing with others. Heaviness that eats away at me. Writing has been my way to lift some of that weight. To be able to talk about it. To be able to grow as a person. The last couple of weeks have been profoundly heavy on me.

The saying when times get tough, you find out who your friends are, is true. Over the past few years, I’ve let go of people who showed me they were only surface friends. In the last six weeks, I’ve learned a few more hard lessons with friends. People whom I would’ve bent over backward for proved themselves not to do the same. I’m aware that we’re all at ages now where we are adults and have our own busy lives, but part of being an adult and a friend is knowing when to be there for someone else. Those of you that have been there that have genuinely cared to know the real answer to “how are you” and those of you that have shown up; I can not thank you enough. You’ve helped me open my eyes to who is more than a surface friend. I’m finally at peace with my circle becoming smaller.

The last six weeks weren’t just about opening my eyes with my relationships in my life. There was a great deal of reflection about my life. I’ve repeatedly been told my options are limited and I’m complicated. I’ve come to have a love-hate relationship with this complexity. I love that everything about me is complex. I’m a light, bubbly person, but once you get to know me, you see that there is much more beneath all of that. As my best friend, Madison, told me last night, “there’s so much concealed under your outgoing, upbeat personality.” She’s not wrong and what she said sat with me all night. I love the complexity of my being in that sense but hate it in the medical sense. Being complicated in the medical world is not a hidden beauty. It’s messy, and no one wants to be messy. It’s caused me to be filled with fear. I live every day with fear. Fear of the unknown because the unknown in this situation usually points to death.

People are always saying things about how quickly life can change and how we need to live in the moment. How often do you find someone doing that? I feel as if we only think about life that way when something terrible happens. In the last few weeks, I’ve repeatedly told myself that if it doesn’t bring me happiness or serve me in a positive manner that I need to cut it out. But we rarely take our own advice, do we? It wasn’t until I spent a Tuesday morning with my friend Lilly that it all came full circle. Everyone needs a Lilly in their life, and for those of you that know her, aren’t we lucky. She has provided me with an endless amount of entertainment, a safe space, and a love like no other. Sometimes we view things differently, and one of us has to adjust our outlook to overcome the disconnect, and that, my friends, is a healthy friendship. So, we’re sitting on her couch on a Tuesday afternoon after having a good morning. I’m getting ready to leave for a doctor’s appointment, and she can visibly see the fear on my face. For some reason, just to have her acknowledge that she can not begin to comprehend my fear, but has genuinely tried to, as well as how much she sits with it because she loves me, was precisely what I needed to hear. I felt seen at that moment. I had someone look me in the eye and hold back their pain to tell me that they didn’t understand mine, but they tried to, and she wasn’t going to give me advice but that she supported me in whatever choice I made. This was exactly what I had needed at that moment, and Lilly tends to always deliver in those moments of need. I found myself reflecting on our conversation the whole way to Pensacola, reflecting on how I needed to take my own advice, how I needed to remove things that no longer positively serve me. I need to do what makes me happy and stop caring if others understand what that looks like because I have people other than my family, like Lilly and Madison, who will always support me. I have friends that are genuine.

So now I’m at another turning point in my life. I’m lying in a hospital starting a new medication that has the potential to help me or severely cause damage. I’m discussing possibly having another surgery. With all of this unknown and all of the potential life-changing things that can happen, I’m trying to remind myself that I need to take my own advice. I’m no longer going to sit at tables where I might be the topic of discussion when I get up. I’m going to stop caring about what my happiness looks like to others. I’m going to continue sharing my truth even if others don’t understand why. I’m going to try to continue to share my heaviness and make sure others know they’re not alone. I’m going to try and live unapologetically.