The longer we wait around, the faster the years go by

When you have no authority or power over the actions of your own mind and body, it’s easy to feel despondent. My medication is clearly not working; I had another seizure on April 14^th. I’m incredibly thankful that it was while I was sleeping, but I’m intimidated by my own brain, since I have no control and barely any warning of what will happen next. Seeing that I’ve had three seizures in the last five months, I expect to have another one within the next 30-70 days. But, I’m happily switching back to my old neurologist; since my current one doesn’t seem to think it’s an issue that my medication has become ineffective. I’ll likely switch medications; however there’s no guarantee that what they put me on will be effective.

I'm happy to say that I don’t have the time or energy to waste on feelings of melancholy on this subject. I will not allow myself to waste my short life being morose over something that does not define me. I only have one life, and my epilepsy is something that will never go away.  No matter how many times I get brought down, both physically and mentally; it is something that I will duel to my death.  I’m prepared to have another seizure; each one doesn’t make my epilepsy any easier to deal with, but it also doesn’t make it any harder. I feel like every seizure is just adding a little more gunpowder to the firework called Megan. And this is a grand finale you’re going to want to see.  

Many have expressed their pain over the death of the artist Prince this last week. I’ve been a fan of Prince since I was quite young; the first time I saw “Purple Rain” I proclaimed I would someday marry Prince. We all know that didn’t happen, as my husband is much burlier.  But Prince’s music is something that I’ve never stopped enjoying, and seeing him in concert in 2007 just made my admiration for his artistic talents flourish. Just today, as I was doing a search about epilepsy statistics; I discovered that Prince also struggled with epilepsy. I can’t express how much it emboldened me to know that someone who I’ve respected for much of my life, and who has built himself and his entire career up from basically nothing, shares the life experience of seizures with me. 

All of this has caused something to jolt in my brain, because recently I’ve started rethinking my future and where I want to go with my writing. Despite this being my first post since February, I’ve been writing much more lately. A couple pieces are blog posts that are still works in progress, an old short story that I’m trying to lengthen, some poetry. But I want to do much more; I want to see my writing on more than just my personal blog, and documents on my computer. There’s not enough time to wait around for the things I aspire to, aspiring isn’t enough; my ambitions will remain stagnant unless I keep jumping the hurdles that impede my path. 

 There’s no doubt that changing jobs has been effective in energizing me. While working in a place that made me feel completely insignificant for a long period of time, it was hard to wake up every morning. It was hard to smile about the weather, hard to care about the quality of what I was working on. When I was working in a place where all of my years of hard work in college felt like they were fruitless and would bring me nowhere, I felt defeated, depressed, and broken down. When the people around me were stuck in the same position, we fed off of each other’s misery; continuing the vicious cycle of hatred towards ourselves.

It wasn’t until I left the contamination, that I realized how much better it can be. My three weeks off of work after my last seizure was rejuvenating to my mind, body and soul. I may have been a little bored at times, but it was therapeutic to be able to sleep in, eat healthy at home, exercise daily, and read hundreds of pages per week. But the past two months at my new job has been a refreshing and valuable experience. I know that this is not what I will be doing forever, but it’s going to help me financially at the very least, and could possibly lead me down a route I never would have taken.  There’s no time for stagnancy, because the longer we wait around, the faster the years go by.