First Entry

I wrote this early this morning and thought I'd post it as my first entry.

Here I am at 2:45 AM laying in my bed, looking at RA blogs. It seems odd considering that two hours ago I could barely stay awake when I was trying to read something else. Not to mention the fact that I only got 2 or 3 hours of sleep last night because I was nervous about starting my summer internship. Tonight (or this morning) I’ll be lucky if I can sneak in 4 ½ hours before I have to get up to get ready. It’s not that I am not tired either… for some reason I started looking at RA blogs and it was sort of like an addiction. Each blog had links to other blogs and it just snowballed into me still being awake at 2:45 AM. I am going to have a rough 5 hours today I think.

Anyway, I was looking at all the blogs and thinking about this blog. I set up this blog account because I thought that by some amazing miracle or something people might actually want to hear what I have to say about having RA. I wasn’t sure where to start and that’s a lot of the reason that I haven’t written an entry yet. I thought about starting with how I was diagnosed, my background, and/or something similar to that. As I was looking at these other blogs I started to think “Why would anyone want to read my story? What makes it so special? How are people going to react to my mostly optimistic thoughts on the subject of RA?”

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to start this blog for ME and no one else. So what if I am Suzy Sunshine most of the time? Does that make my feelings any less valid than those of someone who is a Debby Downer? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that my entries are going to be all happy, happy, joy, joy. I have worried times and angry times and frustrated times just like everyone else does. The thing is, I am a very introspective and reflective person.  I believe that every experience is a learning experience no matter how bad it is while I am going through it. That does nothing to diminish the suckfest that is Rheumatoid Arthritis, but I have learned a lot about who I am from dealing with this annoying and painful disease. Coming from a place where I had no idea who I was as a person or what I was capable of, that means a lot. So, no matter how much I hate RA I will always be just a little grateful to it for teaching me what is important in my life. Anyone who wants to look down on me or belittle me because of that can (as they used to say) go suck an egg. I will not apologize for looking at the glass half full, just as I would not expect anyone else to apologize for looking at it half empty.