The life you want vs the life you get...

I know..... many people have written about their own lives and stuff like this.... what your life is about, what happens to you.... why... why... why.... and all that....

I'm making my lists, making goals and not taking this proverbially laying down.

I also have a sneaky feeling my new medications are making me more daring or more opinionated....?  I have tried as many medications as I have seen doctors !

I have been told by specialists I have Chiari, I don't have "real" Chiari; I have syringomyelia, I don't have syringomyelia, I have hydromyelia instead....

I finally just got fed up with it and accepted the heavy duty drugs to help with the pain, the doofiness with the drugs is just going to have to be the "new me"....  :)

I also sent my MRI information to two renowned specialists in Syringomyelia and Chiari as well as Tarlov cyst (as I'm lucky enough to have one of those, too).

I wish I had a different life, but then what would I wish for?  Everyone has their own problems.  I used to live on Miami Beach back in the late 1980s, early 1990s and I worked for a very well-respected bank and ended up making money deliveries to the weathy people in the condos who lived within walking distance of the bank..... I met a woman, who got $1500 a week from her account (think of this , back in 1987? WOW)... well, she was the most miserable thing I have ever seen, so that proved to me that money isn't everything and I think I needed to learn that lesson when I did.

I didn't pursue the education that I should have and now I am nothing and do nothing, waiting to be approved for disability.  That  makes me feel like a huge failure, that I did "nothing" with my life... but how does one quantify nothing?  What makes a person a success?  What makes them a failure?

In my case, moving straight down to Miami Beach 1 week after graduating high school really didn't give me much of a chance of success.... there was so much going on and coming from a very very very small town, it was overwhelming!!!   I went to several different colleges (with promises from my father that he would pay).... and that never happened... so I did community colleges, adult education centers... etc.

Moving back home 8 years later to start over didn't help.

At any rate, I'm here now, feeling like my life is over but I know it's not.  I was telling a dear friend that she has to now re-invent herself and I have to do that, too.  It's going to be frikin hard at 41!!!!!!!!!

The combination of pain medication I'm on now seems to help so that makes me happy..... but being on heavy-duty drugs does not.

There is alot of stuff rolling around in my head... and having a chronic illness only brings these things to the forefront and into clearer focus... like someone knowing they are going to die and saying, "Gee, what did I DO with my life?".... 

I think that is uniquely human to want to DO something with our lives, to want to make an impression (duh, or we wouldn't be human, would we?).

To be continued.....