Hi Tomodachi’s,

Yesterday was my birthday! I made 34 years old and hopefully I have become wiser 😅. I cannot believe that I am already 34! It almost feels like it was just yesterday that I was a young kid daydreaming and envisioning how my life would look like in my 20s, 30s and 40s.

Anyway, yesterday, for the most part, was spent quietly. In the morning hours I did a bit of running (and walking) on the Wells Bay road after such a long time. It was really such a beautiful and bright day to do some good exercise and swimming. I had planned to swim but seas were too rough for that. Life reminding me that not everything has to go your way and that is also okay.

After the exercise it left me feeling so refreshed, relaxee and serene that I later did not really want to do anything else that day. I then spent the rest of my day quietly in my home reading an interesting story I picked up and have been reading (online) for a little more than a week.

At first, I was originally thinking of doing something for my birthday like eating out or getting my nails done or just doing SOMETHING to commemorate the occasion. In the end, on the day itself I just decided to spend it quietly sitting around. Sometimes birthdays can also be spent quietly. It does not always have to be spent doing something grand and celebrating it with people around you. I am just grateful to still be alive; to still be able to breathe in the clean and fresh air; and to still have all of my limbs attached to my body even though they may hurt at times.

I remember around this time last year I was getting ready to spend a week in Aruba, for the first time in my life, for medical reasons. The reason for that being that the last few years, I have been experiencing consistent and continuous bouts of pain and fatigue. There were days when I experienced it much more severely than others and it was not fun to go through but many times I had to clench my teeth and bare it. There were many mornings I really had trouble getting out of bed because I was doubled over with some very SEVERE (lower) back pain; And there were days where I felt so exhausted that I did not even want to get out of bed at all but still had to. Even when I had just woken up and had a full 7 to 8-hours night of rest I was still extremely exhausted. As if I did not get any rest at all the night before. It was ridiculous how horrible I could feel some days and it was starting to really affect me in the wrong way. These were just a few of the many ailments I was dealing with at the time and still deal with. But, of course, like most Caribbean people, I kept it all mostly to myself. Therefore, no one knew my struggles and always saw me smiling most days and probably thought I was doing great.

Anyway, for the past year I have been going back and forth to the doctors and travelling abroad with insurence to figure out what was going on with my body and why I was feeling the way I was feeling. I had many tests done and after going through all of that, in July of last year, I was later diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And if you are familiar with the disease you would know that it is one of those diseases that can be pretty difficult to live with. It develops in people who have had a lot of traumatic (mental, emotional and physical) experiences growing up and were always on high alert or high levels of stress all the time.

Despite all of that, I am glad to at least finally know what I have and why I was feeling the way that I was feeling. That my ailments, pains and discomfort were not figments of my imagination. Also, long before I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I noticed that the more physically active I was and the more I dealt with my mental health the more it helped to alleviate a lot of my pain and ailments. It did not get rid of the pain completely but at least it made it more bareable to deal with. And any reduction in pain, even if it is just a little, is a win in my books! I would rather have reduced and more managable pain than being in constant and consistent pain all the time. So, that is partly the reason why you have been seeing me post a lot about all the sports events I have participated in.

Not to mention, I was also recently diagnosed with IBS,  Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which is yet another not so nice condition to have alongside fibromylgia which means I also have to be very careful with everything I eat or suffer the consequences later. And this happened all within a year span. I feel like so much has happened within a year and I learned so much about myself within that time, than I ever have in any other year I have lived to see.

I am writing all of this just to say that I am just happy to still be alive in the land of the living and still doing fairly well. Well, at least most days 😄. I no longer want to hide away and keep quiet about my conditions because that is what most people would do. Maybe my story could help someone else and let them know that they are definitely not alone in what they are feeling.

Some days I struggle and some days I do not. I still consider myself very young but there are also other days that my body feels like I am an 80 year old woman. Where I can barely bend or twist my body without experiencing a lot of pain in certain areas. But, again, despite all of that I am still grateful I get to see the age of 34 and look forward to seeing many more birthdays that are to come. At the end of the day only you can make the most of life no matter what life throws your way.

So, happy birthday to me!