32: It's funny how life is seldom what you plan...

The title of this blog is a line from a Jon Foreman song that I love. Lately, my life has felt less and less like what I planned. I'm sitting alone in a cafe in Petaluma, California, surrounded by strangers on the eve of my 32nd birthday. I've been working on my memoir for the last few hours. I started listening to “Brain On Fire” on audiobook the last few days and it’s been heavy. It’s added layer upon layer to my research for my memoir. I have to stop every few minutes (or more) and write down notes or my own thoughts. Susannah’s experience with her illness is so similar to mine. It’s intense. I’m doing a lot of reflecting and jotting down things I need to research further.

I won an airline gift card from a beloved author and podcaster and decided to come on vacation for my birthday back to California. That’s why I am here now, tonight. I needed some sun and time near the beach. I planned to see friends, do some hiking, visit dogs on campus. The vacation didn’t turn out like I originally planned. Life is like that…my life has always been like that. I’m not sure most big things in my life go quite as I plan them! It’s almost comical sometimes. 

I'm okay, but this chapter of life is not what I expected. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting—for it to be easy? Ha! What a silly expectation. No, but maybe I thought I had it all figured out or something? 

I’ve been thinking about when I was a teenager and I thought I had it all figured out as I was leaving for college. I had hopes and dreams. 

It seemed simple. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to have some kind of job where I could help people, probably working with kids. I wanted to find love, have a family, and be a mom. I wanted to travel and do things with my family, and raise my kids to be good people. Those are the dreams I had as a teenager. Those dreams aren’t always simple to achieve, but compared to the land mines that got in my way starting in my early years of college? Everything got complicated after that.

When I got to college, all of those dreams were stripped away. I temporarily buried my dreams and had one goal: to survive. Just get through this. The rug got pulled out from underneath me when I was twenty. When I was twenty-one, my life felt like it would never be the same when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder (even though we now know that diagnosis was incorrect). I was right--my life has never been the same. 

My dreams changed, shifted, and grew throughout my twenties. I wanted to fight the stigma of mental illness. I met wonderful people who had a totally different life than me. I did things I never thought I'd do, like attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to support friends. Now, I can say I've attended just about every type of recovery meeting that exists to support friends I met in mental health spaces. That's definitely not a goal I had as a teenager, but it's an experience I wouldn't trade. Treatment friends are a unique kind of bond that is hard to grasp unless you have experienced it, but those people will always hold a place in my heart. Their stories aren’t mine to share, but I am forever changed by the many people I met in those hospitals, support groups, and recovery meetings. Maybe I'll never see them again, and maybe I've forgotten their names or faces, but we helped each other get through some of the hardest and darkest times of our lives. I wish them all healing and health and I pray they are safe.

Back in my early twenties, I still held onto the dream of working with kids and teens. I got to work with and mentor so many wonderful kids. I got to mentor a lot of really great kids. I volunteered at some awesome youth groups, worked at two wonderful camps as a camp counselor over three different summers, and babysat countless kids of varying ages at the handful of churches in different cities I lived in throughout my young adult years. I can't choose a favorite age of kids, because there's something fun and unique about every age between birth to eighteen. 

I experienced tragedies and grief. Too many--my heart could barely take it. That is something we never plan in life, but it's also a normal part of life. With that grief though, I am grateful that I learned how to grieve. I took the time to learn how to grieve well--to learn how I personally grieve and how to support others through their grief. 

It took a long time to find healing. I did survive though. I never gave up. I never quit trying to finish college and I finally did that this year--nine-ish years later than originally planned. 

I still dream of being a mom. I still dream of finding love. My career plans are different, but I still want to help people. I still love working with kids and I will always find ways to do that--but now I know how to train dogs, too. How fun! Life is good. 

Tomorrow is my 32nd birthday, but it’s also my 22nd extra birthday. Cancer could've cut my life short at age ten. But I'm a survivor! Encephalitis could've cut my life short, too. But I am still here. Another birthday. I am grateful. There are so many people who have walked this journey with me and have carried me along the way. I would have given up so many times if it were only up to me. Some people tell me I am brave, but I just think I'm doing the best I can with what I've been given. I am far from a perfect person (ask my mother, ha!). I choose hope, gratitude, and joy as often as I can...but it isn't easy. 

I'll be okay. I am choosing joy and gratitude today as I start the next year of life. I'm sure it will be different than anything I can plan...it always is. I'm just going to show up with open hands and an open heart. That's the plan, at least. Ha!

Sincerely,

Haley