Today I find that I am standing at a crossroad. I have been here before. Actually, I came to it years ago and out of fear, I have just stood still and ignored the road entirely thinking that if I did so, another and better option would come about. It hasn’t. So here I am. Again. Still. Forcing myself to face the unfaceable. Do I or don’t I apply for disability?

I hate this road. This possible path of, for lack of a better word, doneness. That is what it is, isn’t it? The two words “Permanent Disability” seem to scream at me whenever I think about them. But am I really done working at the age of 38? My head just can’t wrap around it. Residing to the idea that my body is no longer capable of something that is, what I was brought up to believe, something that I *should* be doing – it is just baffling and I’ll say it, heartbreaking.

When we are little and just beginning to form our first opinions of the world, the very first question we are asked is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From that moment on, we define ourselves by one major thing – work. It is what we study, what we strive for, what our days are made up from. Ask us who we are without it and you will be met with a stuttering response. When we first meet a stranger they will undoubtedly ask “What do you do?” Can I really be ok with answering that question with “Nothing. I am too ill to work.” ? The very thought makes me sick to my stomach.

When I was little, all I wanted was to be an artist. I loved to paint and draw and create. As I grew older, all I wanted was my own design firm. I had it all figured out. I was going to be the CEO of a prestigious design firm or well on my way there by the age of 35, with a husband to boot. For a short while, I was on my way there. A very short while. I had no idea that my body had other plans. The mind controls the body right? Wrong! My body went into full mutiny against my mind and has stayed there ever sense. I have yet to get the two to agree to anything.

I now work part-time retail, and I’m single to boot. It is so very painful and exhausting. At the end of the day I collapse into bed and find that I am too tired to eat dinner. The nerves in my legs, feet, and back are screaming at me in protest and I am in tears while I reach for my newest pain treatment as most of them only work for short periods of time. On my days off, I sleep non-stop in an effort to regenerate some sort of energy so that I can go back to work and do it again the next day. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. Profoundly. I don’t want to go. But I also know that living this way, is not a life. The whole thing makes me deeply, deeply sad.

So here I am. At this crossroad. Wondering if I (not to mention the rest of the world) can be ok with me not working. Wondering if I can actually face this fear. I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is that something needs to change. Standing still isn’t an option any longer.