Why Write? – My Story

Why Write? – My Story 

Why I decided to start writing…

People often say that your dreams are possible as long as you keep trying.  Well, what happens if you are continuously faced with an obstacle?  An obstacle that keeps pulling you back similar to a sticky gum that is stuck on your shoe and doesn’t want to come off.  When I was a teenager, I faced one of the most difficult challenges in my life that I have continuously fought back.

Imagine being in the prime of your teenage life, when, one day, everything starts to change.  I went into my doctor’s office and was told that I had a chronic illness.  I looked like I had anorexia and felt so depressed.   My doctor gave me a video to watch which had people talking about how their lives had changed and that they would never be normal.  It was the most depressing video I had ever seen!  How could I not be normal?  I wasn’t any different today than I was yesterday!

After watching that video, I decided that I was going to stop feeling sorry for myself.  I had always felt ashamed of being sick.  Was it really my fault?  I was determined to create a symbiotic relationship with my chronic illness.  I was going to gain my strength from my deficits.  I started to analyze whether my initial career goal of becoming an attorney was really what I wanted.

After much thought, I went into Finance, but had a soft spot for writing.  I wrote about how I felt and my uncertainties on any given day.  I reevaluated everything in my life and was determined to live.  Every time I made progress in my accomplishments, something would happen to remind me of the horrible words I had heard in the doctor’s video stating that my life would never be normal.

My health seemed to bounce back and forth just like the sticky gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe until I discovered that my main culprit was gluten sensitivity, the reason for my chronic illness.  I have been on a gluten-free diet for several years now.  I have been able to create substitutes for gluten-free cooking on almost everything.  Fortunately, with so many people being diagnosed with either gluten sensitivity or gluten intolerance, there has been a significant increase in the number of gluten-free products found in stores.

Back to why I decided to start writing…

Writing has been the peanut butter helping peel off the sticky gum when nothing else seems to take it off.  It has been my avenue of normalcy.  It has helped me realize that the sticky gum can come off….