I guess a lot has happened to me in the last 2 years. I've grown in many different ways, people have come and gone, many have given up on me, but also the inner me has grown, evolved somehow. I'm probably a lot more mature that I've ever been. A lot more informed about the 'real' world. I guess we all grow in one way or another...
Maybe that week I did something different, changed my routine somehow, pushed myself to hard. All I know is that everything changed that week, drastically, and I don't think it's ever going to be the same again. Two years ago I got ill and to this day I pray to get better.
Life goes on. Well I suppose it has to. But over these two years I have learnt to deal with a new life and most importantly a new me. You evolve quicker when you are ill, your views change almost automatically, you realise what you had and were never grateful for.
I think the first thing to change was my feelings on life. Your emotions go through stages when you first get ill and even when you reach the final stage and accept it all there are still days when you drift back to the beginning again, anger and disbelief. I think I've reached acceptance now, but there are many days when I sit and cry or get really annoyed. Not always for a particular reason but something hits you.
My friends were always there but I suppose I never quite fitted in. Now instead of wasting my effort and energy on them I've made new ones and for once in my life dared to be different. I buy music because I like it not because my friends do. I wear what I want to wear, I read books and watch programs that I wouldn't have dared to admit before. The posters on my wall have changed; they are the people I like, things I love. I drifted away from my friends and sometimes feel like the loneliest girl in the world, but in some ways this is the first time I've ever been me. Take me as I am and boy does it feel good.
I've had to change my priorities too. No longer can I fit everything into a day, so I've had to change a few things. Health always comes first, but it took me a while to realise that. I've always pushed myself hard. I'm one of those people where second best is not enough! I don't know why it's just my nature but I've had to learn to control that and other things I've spent years intertwined with my personality.
I have become more active with things. I don't mean sports because I can't do them anymore but other things. If I want to learn something I go get a book from the library and learn it. I want to be a writer someday so I spent some of my week submitting my work to magazines and online zines to get it out there. There is no hanging around anymore. It took two years of illness for me to realise this if I do nothing I'll have nothing and even if I fail all my exams I will have conquered something a lot greater: my illness.
To everyone who doesn't know me, or refuses to anymore, I will always be that ill girl—the one who sits at the back of the class, very quietly actually trying to learn. To those people I will always be the lucky one who gets to stay home when she wants. Inside there is so much more to me and now finally I've realised who appreciates me for that.
Although my mind has been entrapped for 2 years in a body that has stopped working for some unknown reason I gave up searching for ages ago, I will not let it get me. I will carry on, fight it, until it leaves me in peace and until then I will say what I have to say and make the world realise I'm not the ill girl at the back of the class. I am Eleanor, a person in their own right, and something has just happened to hold her back a bit. I am me and I will show the world that, even if I'm still ill in 2 more years.
One day my so-called friends will watch in amazement as I conquer more odds. The truth whether they like it or not is that I am so much more than them, I have done so much more, I have conquered the odds, overcome them and whether or not they do more school than me will not matter because I know in my heart I have done the impossible and lived.
