'Life Goal' - #HAWMC

Today's Prompt: 'What’s one thing that your 10-year-old self thought you would do? Can you still do it? How would you approach it to make it happen?'

Hi Kath! (aged 10)

You call yourself that instead of Kathleen now. Pretty cool eh?!

Is ‘cool’ a cool thing to say? What do I know; I’m the 31yr old version of you. And that’s OLD right? Yes, yes it is.

Anyway what did we want to do at 10years old? Well we wanted to write and paint and marry Dave Grohl. As we both know only two of those goals are achievable; we’re a terrible painter. So writing? About what? At 10 we liked to write ghost stories and draw comic books. Usually pretty graphic with those illustrations weren’t we? Heads exploding and people being stabbed…. Maybe not the best thing to show Gran that time she had a stomach bug but never mind, we live and learn. And what to paint? Still lives and cats usually. Still an ongoing inspiration those feline pals. However we met boys and got distracted, yes you can draw and write about those boys but try not to let them distract you from study and seeing the world. In terms of us still making our goals happen – we can, and do. Not perhaps in the way you imagine – you don’t have an art studio and we eventually get am ACTUAL COMPUTER instead of a typewriter that sounds like a tiny toed elephant quick-stepping across the landing from downstairs.

You also didn’t have an incurable illness back then. Thankfully.

I always think how much it must suck having Crohn’s Disease as a child. Or any disease for that matter.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again – you don’t know what Crohn’s is yet. It’ll feel like you can’t achieve all you want to in life when you are told you’re sick. Don’t listen to yourself! You’re not always right. You might worry that having a chronic illness will stop you painting, drawing, achieving your goal of becoming Dave Grohl’s wife; don’t worry. Life doesn’t end when you get this disease – in some ways it begins again. You will discover an abundance of love you didn't think was possible from those around you. You’ll find yourself reinvigorated and will challenge yourself to draw and paint and write. WRITE things like THIS! You will write for you and for people like you – it will make you feel good in a way you might never have thought would be possible again.

Don’t ever give up!

Also, Dave Grohl will marry another woman but it’s just a stop-gap.

Love,

Kath 31 and a half xxx

This post was written as part of WEGO Health's Activist Writers Monthly Challenge - #HAWMC