My greatest fear for after high school is possibly not going anywhere with my life, or career. I would be a little scared, like anyone naturally will be, entering the workforce after i finish with school. Everyone is always a little apprehensive leaving college and starting the real world. I envision it like they do on the movie screens and television shows, but i know it won’t be like that. I worry i won’t be smart enough to do what I want to do, and that I don’t belong where I think I’m going...
But in reality, my greatest fear, is not something that applies to after high school, but rather is a fear I hold today. I am terrified of not being strong enough. Ever since I was diagnosed with arthritis, I have been permanently set back by my disability. And I’m not playing the pity card, or even saying I can’t handle the disease, but merely telling the truth. Arthritis sets me back. I have to work ten times harder to do something any normal person can do without thinking. I am always thinking about it, I can’t afford not to. All I want is to be perceived as a normal girl. But the reality of it all is that I can never be and will never be a normal girl. I have to force myself to be stronger, everyday. Both emotionally and physically. The idea behind physical therapy for years was that if I could strengthen my muscles in my wrists, hands and ankles, then the pain might not be as great. However, even though now, I have more muscles than most girls my age, I still feel the pain. But I ignore it the best I can, because as soon as I stop doing that, I get labeled as different. The girl who can’t run. The girl who has an excuse. The girl who is weak. The girl everyone should pity. But I don’t want pity, in fact, being perceived as weak terrifies me. I go above and beyond to prove people wrong when they say I can’t do something. I try my best not to break down and cry when the realities of the world come crashing in on my like the recurring waves. I am not allowed to cry because my life sucks, for it shows that I am not strong enough to deal with what life has dealt me. So I don’t cry, because I am strong enough.
One of my recurring nightmares that always wakes me in a panic is when I play soccer. This was more prevalent of a dream when I actually played soccer, but still it haunts me to this day. I’ll be playing, and i get the ball. All I have to do is kick it upfield, but no matter how hard I kick, no matter what strength I muster to put behind the ball, the ball never moves more than a few feet. Sometimes it doesn’t even move at all, because some inexplicable force will not let me. In that moment I realize I am too weak to kick the ball, something that anyone can normally do. I can kick it normally many dozen feet. Probably 40-50 yards on a good kick. In my dream, I can hardly move. That is what terrifies me the most, that the reality is always haunting me and will never leave me.
I’m scared that one day the crashing waves that i’ve been holding back and fending off for so long, will overtake me in a tidal wave; a wave so big I can do nothing but drown in it and sink to the floor of the ocean until I’ve hit rock bottom. That is my greatest fear. Sure, I may be exceptionally strong, emotionally more so than physically, but no amount of strength in the world can hold back the waves forever. The strength of nature is stronger than that of man, and I must face my inevitable fate one day. That is what terrifies me. I have seen how weak this disease can make you, and I have seen the two types of pain it causes. I have felt it all first hand. I do not want to relive it. No one would like to relive their worst nightmare but what sucks is I don’t have a choice. Juvenile arthritis can be compared to a math equation. y=-x^2. Now, if you don’t know the shape off the top of your head, that is the equation for an upside down parabola. At first, life sucks, because the disease is new and rages through you body. Your body has no idea how to fight this, and begins to feel the pain of your body waging war on itself. It no longer fights for you alone. Slowly, the medicine, which are experts in this war, help your soldiers, still on your side, hold back the others from hurting you even more. You get better. The pain eases up. You can walk normally again. And even more slowly, the medicines leave, having taught your body some of the skills they use to fight this war. It becomes manageable on your own. The doctors call this remission. But I don’t even know if I qualify, because I still feel the pain. After a while, you know you have to go down the other side of that parabola and face the uglier side once more. It could be in a year, five, twenty, or even fifty years, but I know it is coming.
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