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
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