Broken Crayons Can't Hide

Broken crayons still color... This is something that I am constantly coming back to. It has in a way become my mantra since I started this blog back in October of 2014. I have found a new perspective to this mantra of mine that I haven't thought of before. I have mentioned it in my earlier posts but I haven't directly applied it to myself until now.

Broken crayons always get shafted. If you have a box full of multiple colors of crayons the ones with the paper and the sharpest points get used. It's a fact. But the short stubby broken crayons probably want a chance to color to. They want to add to the coloring book or whatever paper your coloring. And that's where I feel stuck right now...

It's true that broken crayons still color. I know that for a fact. But I think there are times that I find myself holding back because of what has happened to me. Because I have Lyme I'm not able to do this. I haven't realized how much I sometimes hide behind it. Just like a broken crayon hides behind the fact that it is broken.

I noticed it this week as I got ready to declare my major and take the next "big step" in adulthood. I new at the beginning of the semester what I wanted to go into. I just couldn't get myself to go and declare it. To set up a grad plan and go for it. I thought it was because I just didn't want to have a sudden change, but it goes much deeper than that I've realized...

I now realize how much I let my disease hold me back. I have a lack of faith in my future because I don't know what is going to come up next. Right now I'm dealing with potential gallbladder problems because of the year  that I was on 4 different antibiotics being switched around constantly. I've been off the antibiotics for 5 months and I'm still getting effects from them (Fun fact: consistent antibiotic treatments are not nice to your gallbladder). 

So the fear of the future, or lack of faith of what I need to be doing in my life and moving on to the next thing is the struggle. And I let myself hide behind the excuse of my Lyme. I am ashamed that I feel this way. I don't want to fear my future. I don't want to suddenly have to pack up and go home from school. But there is that fear in the back of my mind.

It is a trust issue I know. Trust and faith go hand in hand and fear chases it out. But I also believe that I need to have faith IN my trust. The trust that I know my limitations. That I know that this is where I'm supposed to be. And most of all that this is all in Gods hands.

I really do feel like a broken crayon among nice new pointy crayons here at school. I don't try to let it get me down. But it has been getting me down because I'm hiding behind the fact that I still am broken.

To make sure that I don't do this I have to check myself. If I feel that fear or tension welling up inside me about something big like, midterms, or declaring my major, or something even bigger like my roomate leaving at the end of the semester. When I think of those things and feel the fear coming in, I have to stop, breath and then go and face it. Whether it's a test and I'm worried that I won't be able to rememebr the material because of my brain fog. Or whether its if I'm not going to make it out of bed the next morning because I didn't sleep a wink the past 2 nights. It's all up in the air. And I can feel that tension I side me, I have to notice it and snuff it out as soon as I feel it controlling me, or me hiding behind it. I WILL NOT let it be the reason that fear stays inside of me.

Someone I know once said: "Tentativity is the mother of failure in any endeavor."

I don't want to be tentative and hide behind my illness. It's already a big enough apart of me as it is, if I start to let it control my future then it controls me and I really am Lyme. I don't want to become Lyme. I want to be a person who had Lyme but does more than just exists with it. 

That is the goal. I can still color, but I can't compare myself and let the fact that I am broken run my life. Broken crayons can't hide behind the fact that they are broken. And I can't do the same thing to myself either.

-The Lyme Warrior