When I got Fibro I treated and treated and treated until eventually everything became like a Doctor Seuss book, and nothing was happening except my bank accounts were always depleted. I decided that asking everyone their opinion was not working. I thought long and hard and soul searched, and my inside voice really, really believed I know my body best; and it was time to get to know it much much better. I fired all of my team the next day. My boyfriend, sister, parents and of course doctors were all against it, but I told them it was time for me to take this fork in the road and do it my own way. I sat with my fibro for six months and listened. I listened to all of the sounds and learned the language as best and quickly as one can. I practiced action, reaction, record over and over again until I had a dictionary and itemized list of tools and directions on how to use them.

This year I had depression. It was more debilitating than any other time in my life. I once again found myself lost and unable to positively impact my daily experience with this particular invisible illness. I tried being still but quickly learned that being still with depression is a kind of fertilizer. I had my first suicidal thought and felt my entire being stop and turn around and sit down. It was with the same cautiousness and firm concern a parent has when their child is disrupting the safety of the vehicle. I pulled the emotional car over. I took some deep breaths, and I firmly decided that everything had to change, this was unacceptable, and an emergency. At that very moment I declared a full halt to my entire life. What I had built was not nurturing me in the ways that I need most of all. All the things I was doing and saying no/yes to were not working in favor of my mental health or my fibro. Pain had been high 200 days in a row. I decided to say yes to everything, and I declared a mandatory Starting Over of my Seattle foundation. I was on a plane three days later. In that time, I crashed my car, broke up with my boyfriend, and my surviving grandparent died. My job also ended.

On May 2, I arrived in California, and it wasn’t until August 12 that I made it back to Seattle to share my story and begin building a remarkably sound foundation in the place that I call home. The journey was amazing, and I have changed from a rough stone to a faceted crystal. I can’t believe how every day continues to shape me, show me how much I shine, and how I light the things (people) around me. I truly am the Joy Maker, and I can really see that and enjoy that now, regardless of any little thing.

Peace is not achieved in the absence of chaos, it is being calm and content in the midst of it. I learned how to do that in the company of pain and my current visitor, depression, this year. It was the hardest thing I have ever done and I am so proud of me I have tears pouring down my cheeks as I write.

This is how my story begins…