It’s funny how the days go by slow, but the years just seem to fly. The last time I wrote here was before we even moved. Now we’ve been in our house for over a year.
I have writer’s block. Which bugs me, because I love to write. I have become more private as I have gotten older, and I don’t know what to write about. I love my job, but it offers very little creativity. I always wanted to be a journalist. Like, when I was in the second grade, my mom would buy me editing workbooks because I wanted to edit in my free time. I would finish my homework, only to go open a nice, fresh proofreading workbook to see if I could find all of the mistakes. I wrote mini newspapers and magazines and truly enjoyed doing my English homework. It was always my favorite class, right beside gym. I was always the kid who came in with the longest essay because I could not say enough. That is, until I learned that a good journalist can get their point across with brevity. Then my new challenge became writing a piece just long enough to give all the details I wanted to convey, but short enough that people would read it. The only part I have always hated about writing is coming up with a good title. I still never know what to name these freaking posts, which is part of the reason I have upwards of 200 drafts just sitting there.
I have things I am passionate about and would enjoy posting on here, so I’m going to start tonight. I want to continue to raise awareness about POTS. I have something written about this already. I forgot what hell it is to lose the ability to protect your body from taking you captive. We NEED to find a cure. Want to learn more about it? Check out Dysautonomia International for some statistics, but you would think that an illness that affects millions of people would have more funding. Many people with POTS don’t feel well, but can still function. About a quarter of cases are so debilitating that patients cannot work. Experts compare the quality of life to someone with congestive heart failure or kidney failure. Most of those affected are young women. I have a lot to say about this, so we’ll be circling back to it; I have been thankful to see POTS taking the news by storm the past year, but I want to keep raising awareness and trying to do my part. It is easy to step back and live my life without giving it a second thought since I have been feeling well. That isn’t right. I am lucky to be doing well, but isn’t that more of a reason to advocate for those who can’t? I have absolutely failed in this regard.
This isn’t my “Chronically POTSitive” blog, though. This is the blog that I enjoyed sharing my life on several years ago, and I want to talk about other things I think are important. I will always lead with empathy and know that I’ll make mistakes if I keep writing, but I think that’s a problem right now. People are afraid to talk because opinions are all so very different. We hear the loudest people and the most argumentative people, but many of us have been silenced. We are in an age that doesn’t always like things or people who are different, but I think that’s probably more of a reason it is important to speak up.
I want to talk about women’s self defense because I know more about the world we live in. I can confidently say that every woman reading this knows how it feels to be home alone and wonder what the bump in the night could be. We know what it is like walking to our car alone at night, and are cautious around men because frankly, most of them could overpower us. Now I know what it’s like to be able to defend myself and it is empowering.
While we’re on the subject of women, I’ll be talking about my relationship with my body. To the few men who read this — you can skip these posts. They’re not really for you, and I’m not sure how I feel about you taking a deep dive into what it’s like in this space of my mind. While we’re there, we can chat about what it’s like being in our thirties and all the pressure society puts on us. I cannot attest to the struggles men face (I can think of several, though), and this blog is all about my own feelings. I assure you that if you feel my posts are lacking in any way, another part of the internet will have the content you are looking for.
I’ll be talking more about love, life in my thirties, and what makes a house a home. There might be some true crime sprinkled in here and there, or romance novel-inspired writing. I know many of you started this journey with me to read funny dating stories, but if you’re reading this, you stayed to see my relationship with Robert blossom into a beautiful marriage. This will be very different than Single in the Suburbs, but hopefully we’ll figure out what I will write about together.
To be a good writer you absolutely need to be honest. Something I seem to have forgotten, though, is that to be a good writer, you need to actually write. We’ll see how everything goes this time around, but welcome back to my corner of the internet. I hope you’ll stick around to chat.
Krista Lauren 