One thing I haven't seen talked about much when it comes to chronic illnesses is how it ages you. By that, I mean making you feel older than you really are, as if you jumped decades all at once. I'm only in my twenties, and yet I often feel like I'm more than double my age, especially when I'm around others my age.
They all seem so, idk, full of life? I've gotten so used to being tired constantly, to getting sick at the smallest change of plans, and avoiding traveling and I guess sometimes I forget that other people just..... don't have to do those things. I wish I could be as adventurous as my friends. It hurts knowing that in some ways, I can never experience life as everyone around me does. It's like I skipped straight over my twenties and went right into my fifties. Some days I think maybe that isn't true, and that I might actually be able to keep up with healthy people my age. But then I try to go out with people, or plan going to an event, or even just hang out at someone else's place, and I'm reminded of how I'll never quite have the freedom of being young and healthy. The "prime of my life" is being living in the shoes of someone far older than what my birth year would imply.
There's just so much about my life that feels......out of place for someone my age. The random pain, the unexpected nausea, the piles of pill bottles, supplements, and injections. Going to the clinic so often that my mom and I are on a first-name basis with the nurses and the doctors. Remembering how to pronounce and spell the names of like 6 different prescriptions. Knowing what a colonoscopy is like, and having had three of them before even being old enough to drink. Having my first priority when job searching be for something with great health insurance. Worrying not about if I will get cancer, but when. Knowing that someday, any day really, I may not respond to medication anymore. That at some point, major surgery may be my only option. Spending several months thinking that I was dying at only 14. Needing to cancel or postpone plans often because I can't leave the bathroom. So, so much that just isn't that common for people my own age. I know that there are lots of others out there with experiences like mine, but I've rarely if ever come across them.
It's hard trying to spend time with anyone. I feel like I'm only going to drag people's mood down and ruin our plans, even if I'm the one that made them. I guess maybe I should try to acknowledge my limits more and accept that I might need to take it easy. But deep down, I want to live like a healthy twenty-something-year-old. I want to make those spontaneous plans, to go out and do something exhausting, to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere with no bathroom to be found and feel confident about it. To party, and fall in love, and take that internship opportunity, and do all the exciting stuff that college has to offer. But I know that I can't in the way that I want to, and that maybe I never will.
It hurts that I will likely never experience the so-called "best years of my life" in the way that I had hoped for before I was diagnosed.
Was it the bread
That got to your head?
Or was it the butter
That made you stutter?
Maybe you think it was the salt
That made it your fault
I know that the berries
Didn't make you marry
But what was your deal
With the oatmeal?
Was the grapefruit too tart?
Maybe it’s why you had to fart
You gave a nickel
For a fried pickle
Maybe the pie
Was the reason that it felt like you were going to die
I mean the honey
Did seem to taste a little funny
Did the steak
Give you a stomach ache?
Was it the chicken soup
That made you have to go poop?
Or was it the icing on the cake
That made your stomach break?
I feel comfortable right now
In this moment
I’m warm
I’m tired
I’m not freaking out
I feel like a little kid in this state of innocence
But this moment has just been ruined by my colon
In other words
I have to poop
Fucking mother nature
You must be laughing at me
But since tomorrow is my birthday
I suppose I should let you have a laugh
But please be careful
With your volcanoes
And your avalanches
But thank you for this moment
Full of my favorite things,
Music,
Warmth,
Fuzzy blanket,
Yarn,
Silly conversations with friends,
A head of ideas,
And lastly,
A feeling of completeness
Or wholeness
No control
So lay me down to rest
I'm done trying my best
IBD is a troll
My head is a now a mess
It wants you to get depressed
So I fill myself with happiness
I can’t let it win
So instead I grin
It makes you feel loneliness
Put on your mockingjay pin
Life’s not so bad, lift up your chin
Pick up your head
You try to ignore the anger
Pain and I are no stranger
Or lie back down to bed
Be a tanker
Keep going, even if you have to be a faker
Come on
Don’t let it
Get to you bit by bit
Stop singing that sad song
Don’t throw that fit
You have grit
Knocked me down
IBD
Is a bully, he pushed me
All the way to the dirty, cold, hard, ground
And I scraped my knee
But I still try to fill myself with glee
Dear, IBD get lost!
Take a hike!
It’s the third strike
You aren’t the boss
You, nobody likes
You can’t catch me on my bike
I fell
There comes a point
Where you want to roll a joint
You stupid spell
The why bother going on point
I don’t care anymore, even if it can affect your joints
Frustrating
Every time I get back on my feet
I get hit hard on the concrete
IBD hating
After everything finally becomes neat
I get hit when I try to cross the street
This has been going on for awhile
Will it ever end?
Well that depends
Always wanting to be normal, everything in a messed up pile
I don’t want to be your friend
Again
For the world I wouldn’t miss
Could you offer me your hand?
To help me stand
I've got this
I can
As long as you can understand