Still I Rise

Let the rambling begin:

When someone underestimates the abilities of another person, aren’t they just looking for an outlet to push their own failures onto?  I mean if someone said to me “You’ll never be able to get an A on that test” is it because they truly beleive I don’t have the mental capacity to achieve an A or is it because they couldn’t or don’t beleive they can.  Would it be that incomprehensible that someone can do something you can’t, and the question is; did you even try?

I see this in everyday life, and it doesn’t just happen to me or to people I know, it’s almost like human nature.  I think that’s why I try and be someone who walks with others and not above them.  I think that’s why I don’t know what to say when someone says they look up to me; look up to the strength and resilience I have.  I downplay it and step down to look at them directly in the eyes to show them that where there is strength there is weakness and where there is resilience there is self doubt.

It’s important to want to test your limits and maybe, just maybe reach for something that you never thought could be in your grasp.  How do you know when it’s too far away? When do you tell yourself to just give up? But first you must ask “who gave me these limits that I’m bound to?” Society, friends, family, strangers, and in my case doctors; these are the people that set my limitations.  How am I supposed to measure whose limitations are hard limits and whose limitations I can bend? Let me tell you one thing, the resilience I have isn’t from just sitting around and watching other people decide what I can and cannot do, but my strength comes from knowing what I can handle.

There was a discussion today with a few CHDers about the things we’ve done that we shouldn’t do, and honestly I didn’t think much of it.  I’ve gotten tattoos, I’ve been zip lining, I’ve rode on the back of motorcycles, I’ve climbed trails that didn’t seem like they had an end, I’ve eaten more not “heart healthy” food then a normal person should consume, and I’ve been on more roller coasters then I can even count.  The point of that was that my doctor never said I could not, but he also didn’t endorse the tattoos or the motorcycle rides.  I’m not going to stop going to appointments, stop taking my medications, and if my doctor told me I was too sick to go on rollercoasters or needed to cut something out of my diet for my heart health I would.  I don’t have a death wish. In the same since though I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t test my limits, where I can’t try something new, where I can’t experience some great adventure, and where I can’t fill the albums of my Facebook page.

In no way am I condoning just going off the edge and having no regard for your doctors, but even this week I’ve learned that sometimes you need to take a good hard look at who’s taking care of you.  Adults with complex CHD are the pioneers when it comes to living into adulthood; I mean there is really no answers to “what do we do next?”.  I understand that everyone with CHD has a different story, some are novels while others are just chapters.  Some people write their disease where their name should be; while others just make their disease a chapter in their book about life.  I know my book is filled with my condition, and I know I am who I am because of it, but it is not me.

“The only person you should try to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.”
– Matty Mullins

Live, Laugh, Love…..Always,

Nicole

Made this Facebook cover using PicMonkey.