Don't Worry, I Have Got You Kid

One of the ways I wanted to develop myself last year was to post on here more often.

Well I guess that did not see fruition, oh well who sticks to resolutions anyway? Besides my year sucked so I guess you cannot really write about the amount of times a doctor has called you can you?

Just like the seasons my life has moved in various ways since last year, which can be a good and a bad thing. I find it great I am growing older, but then there is a part of me thinking "Everything is going very fast, I need this planet to stop spinning and let me off this hell hole ride". With life comes inevitable change, ageing (do not even get me starting on that) and adulthood.

It is simply exhausting.

I miss the days when I was a kid and my biggest worry in life was where the shoes for my Barbie doll had gone, and is Ken really a necessity in my collection? Maybe he had taken them to start doing drag and help pay towards the bills while Barbie played with her million different careers. A girl's indecisive decision making is down to the fact her dress does not imply she is a physicist. Or how she is supposed to accept her Nobel Prize for research into solving world hunger with twenty kids.

Adulthood seems to be glorified when you are a kid.

"One day you grow up and you get so much independence! You can do all of these fun things!!"

Except I seem to be bombarded with different messages every day. Everywhere I go, I have too many options. "Do you want a plain moisturiser that is cheaper? Or the one with retinol?"

The difference? One helps you with wrinkles to stop yourself looking older! The other is just useless for you.

Great, I thought the housing market was the biggest worry for me.

I am twenty years old and my health is awful and the last thing I need is an advert telling me to try yogurt because it has skin healing properties. I think my late effects of cancer treatment would laugh at that if I tried it. And send me to A&E with an unknown allergic reaction.

There are days I just want to pause my life. Just exist in my space for a little bit longer, give myself the break I need. Instead the wind blows, the Earth spins and I have the dread sink in.

Ageing is a privilege some people do not get to experience. I know that all too well, growing up a survivor of cancer you see too many memorial posts of kids who pass away too young. Having parents pour their hearts out online talking about their kid, who you met months prior and had the funniest laugh. It makes you grow up so quickly.

With the added part of having invasive procedures often weekly, and doctors keep you alive and healthy does its damage. Your life becomes focused on almost preserving you, not allowing you to grow older. You do not get the chance to breathe and be a kid. You grow up, adjust to the world around you and hope to some entity you can make it through the year without another scare.

A prime example is that the scar I have from the removal of my tumour has grown with me as I got older. It did not stay small because I was, it got bigger because I grew up. Which causes a huge problem for scar tissue and other problems as you grow an inch taller.

I look back at my younger self who felt hopeless and believed she would not have any impact on the world and think now "if only you know who you would become".

Time moves so quickly I often try to find the wonder in life, while it is hard especially with the encyclopedia with health issues I have, but it makes me understand myself more.

I should not be denied joy because I am older now. I did not have that joy when I was younger, and realistically it is my life. I can do what I want.

I think that is always something I struggled with growing up. Everyone has an idea of what you are going to do, be and say and when you do not conform to those standards it shocks them. Then you feel like you let them down.

When your closest friend becomes a nurse in the ward who gives you biscuits and talks to you about animals, you realise this is not a normal experience. But on the other hand she makes the best toast for breakfast so I can't complain.

And then when you go out now, the public has the audacity to ask you very invasive questions because you happen to be disabled. Again not normal.

"Glinda I do not care if you had a hip operation two years ago and cured your pain with tumeric, and I could be the same. I am trying to eat my lunch. Leave me alone."

Personal privacy is something I am in awe now. I love just being able to be alone and not constantly monitored by teams of professionals. Especially when those professionals wake you up in the night for testing.

Silence and I are like best friends. With my deafness and finding peace in a quiet world silence wraps me up with a blanket and gives me some peace.

I love being able to sit on my own somewhere and just be in my own world. Not have to worry about where someone is or when the doctors are going to try my veins for blood again.

Sometimes being on your own can be lonely. Realising there is a twinge of laughter or happiness missing in your life. Then having to deal with the effects of it no longer exists any more. Expecting to turn around and there they are all along.

But life does not work like that, you have to keep the realisation you can't see that person again unless you want to call a necromancer.

It is the hardest thing. Adulthood means you grow up and lose people you did not think were going to be lost. All the while you pick up the pieces and try to carry on without them.

You are an expert on yourself. Which can then turn into a big shield to protect yourself from getting hurt.

It is a lot. It hurts so much some days. There are some days you prevent yourself from talking to other people because you are scared of what might happen. What you might lose, rather than gain.

Life is a chaos ball of fire, dimming at certain parts and being an inferno at other times.

But now I have had a year to think I have come to a conclusion.

There are pockets of jewels that you find in life, no matter how big or small they become so perfect and treasured. You might not think so at the time, but my god now they are the only thing you have.

As I grow up I am a firm believer of the"invisible string theory". It is where everyone you have ever met has an invisible string attached to them, and eventually you will meet them and they will be part of your life. No matter where you are, eventually in the right place and time someone will find you. Soulmates essentially but a prettier way of imagining it.

I never believed that theory more until I met my best friend two weeks after starting college. There was a massive period of struggle and I was convinced I was going to quit my course because of the stress. Then one day I just decided to sit at the right table at the right time and meet one of the most fascinating people I will ever meet.

He would absolutely run with that compliment I can see it now.

From that point we never left each other's side. From that day the string was essentially tied to us, it was not going anywhere. People automatically assumed if one was somewhere the other was too.

We essentially became so connected tutors knew if they split us apart,

it would cause a chasm in the classroom. That is why the seating plan always had a table for two somewhere, we just had to find it. Even if they thought they hid it well.

I learnt some lessons from him and the biggest was "there will never be enough time" especially when life happens so quickly for some. Times that we could not stop laughing at the most inappropriate times all because we looked at each other and set each other off.

He was my biggest cheerleader and there were some days he annoyed the absolute mind off me (and vice versa). But if I was able to go back in time I would treasure those moments more. And live in the moment more, and not worry about my study. I would give my right (or left I never remember which) good working kidney for it.

Those types of jewels are the ones that hurt the most. Especially when it is all you have after so much hurt and loss.

So if I could tell my younger self anything it would be this.

Being patient is not my forte but at the right time you will meet some amazing people. People will know you and like you for who you are. Sure it will be hard and there will be days of trial and error but it will be okay. Your friends will be with you in every capacity and you will make amazing memories. You will be the best version of yourself.

So for now don't worry kid, I have you now.

We will find them again someday, and we will have some catching up to do.

Molly-Tastic Treves