The best way to move forward is to let go of the past and accept the present. I've accepted most of my current situation; I have an overlapping autoimmune disease that has most likely evolved into both RA and lupus--or very close to full blown lupus and RA. (I'll leave all that implies and entails for another blog). Just like everyone else, I have a past. Except every time I think I've made peace with it and put it completely behind me, it worms its way back into my present. No, I wasn't a drug addict, alcoholic, prostitute, hit man, mob boss, under cover secret double agent or anything like that. I don't even have anything that could come back to bite me in the arse (except a few old injuries and broken bones that help me better predict weather). It's just that even as I knew I was getting sicker and fighting through pain that was getting worse, I thought it would get better. Until one day it didn't. Then everything I knew, everything I was, my life as it was just stopped. At 22 years old. And it's been a long, hard battle since then.
Six years ago I thought I had finally stopped running into the circular brick wall of "what do you want to do? I want to be a mechanic. you can't anymore, so what do you want to do?" when I made the choice to return to college to get my degree in psychology. I had hoped that by the time I finished college, my doctors and I would have found the right combination of treatments so that I could return to work. I've been on medical leave now for a year and a half.
Last month was the first time in ages I truly missed being a mechanic and the reality hit home. While my car was in the shop, I was put in a position that made me realized I'm not a mechanic anymore. I can't fix my car--not even a small job (which was something I could do until last year). Then while I was at my rheumatologist's yesterday for a check up, she again recommended a pulmonary specialist because I have COPD and began the required lecture since I'm one of those dumbasses who also smokes. Except I was diagnosed with COPD BEFORE I started smoking. She didn't see that one coming! She stopped mid lecture as if she heard me wrong. Nope. I started after it was brought under control. Why? Because it was the only way to get a break working in the garage. Yes, there are labor laws that require a certain number of breaks for certain lengths of time plus lunch. But I was a woman working in an all male shop, in a very male dominated field. Spouting labor laws would've gotten me breaks, but would not have gotten me very far in my career. Working my ass off and being one of the guys (even if it stupidly meant smoking to get a 5 minute break here and there during 10-12 hour work days), however, would. And it made me miss the job. Again. It wasn't just a job to me. It was who I was. I was on my way to becoming one of the best. It was a family legacy, albeit I was the first female in the family, but still. I had come across guys who hated me simply because I was a woman and took everything they threw at me and then some. It was my passion. I may have been only 22, but I spent from the time I could walk learning and working on cars. Not many people can say they have a job, a career that they love. No two days were the same, but every day was challenging. It was more than a paycheck and it wasn't a job to me. And just like that, it was gone.
I figured I'd become a therapist to help others like myself who've lost their careers because of chronic illness or injury navigate through all that entails. I finished 2 Associates Degrees with an almost perfect GPA in 2 years before I became too sick and had to withdraw (temporarily). Like any endeavor I put my mind to, I excelled in the classroom. Except math, but I suck at word problems. But in recent weeks my mind keeps going back to the garage. I'm sure I would be a good psychologist, but the passion isn't there. It's fascinating. I've always found people interesting and have always loved helping people, but even if I become healthy enough, do I want to make a career out of it? I love school. It keeps my mind engaged, I get to meet new people, I get out of the house when my body allows it, but a career in psychology? I just don't know. I don't feel the same way I did when I decided to become a mechanic. And it scares me a bit. I've thought about maybe getting an associates degree in chemistry just to be able to do something.
Yesterday was just an unintentional eerie deja vu/walk down memory lane. I took a different route home from the rheumy's to avoid construction traffic and found myself passing the garage, taking the same route home when I still lived with my parents from the garage, driving past the technical school I went to after high school, the places my classmates and I would stop after class, the tiny side streets we used to race down trying to beat each other to the highway.... All these years later, I just don't know how to lay to rest that part of my past. How do you bury part of who you are, or should I say were?
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