It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update, and I will be honest in my reasons why.

Each year, there’s a new diagnosis. A new problem. Though I work towards my goals of publishing every single day, my body and my mind are indifferent to my long term goals.

Some days cyclical depression says everything I planned to do is impossible. Some days being unable to sleep spirals into 6 days of being unable to sleep, living in a haze praying that I can eventually crash and return to normalcy. Some days, it hurts to even exist—there is no rest that frees me from the chronic pain that lives in my body.

And no matter how I adapt, improve, or plan ahead… A new stipulation will arise! A new condition. Another injury. Another surgery. Another treatment. More medication. More side effects. More of my life put on hold for weeks, months. Precious days of my life spent to just recover. The inertness, the constant stillness required to live in this body, is something I am all too familiar with; but that does not make it any less maddening.

Writing is the only escape I have away from this prison that invents more demands and rituals each day. Though my goals seem further from me than ever, some spiteful part of me still persists. I feel the determination burning inside me, but the rest of me responds with indifference, anhedonia, and yet again, another new plethora of aches and pains.

Though I doubt anyone will make the effort to look this early into the beginning of my journey, the proof will still be there; as I sat in the dark and suffered, I still dared to dream. I dreamed, even knowing full well that these stories would likely never become tangible. I still dream, watching my body crumble before me as I age, as my immune system finds another way to betray me. Though it may be a fools errand, I dream, knowing every dream requires years of blood, sweat and tears to be divined into existence.

I suffered for my work, because my body and mind were born broken. And I am proud of that, in my insanity, I persist.