I'm Not a Hypochondriac.

I’ve always been a sickly kid.

I had pneumonia 9 times before the age of ten. I grew up using a breathing machine every few months. When I was fourteen, my eyes were mysteriously crossed for three months, to the confoundment of every doctor I visited. For two years in high school I suffered from debilitating chronic migraines. I’ve had pretty much every test and procedure a human can have at this point, from EEGs to CTs to colonoscopies.

And when I was 17, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s.

My time as a professional sick kid started before I could walk or talk

When you’re sick all the time, people tend to want to find simpler explanations. And the simplest explanation of all, it seems, is that it’s all in your head. It’s a lot easier for people to stomach that you want attention, or are just a bit anxious and neurotic, than that a teenage girl is just legitimately ill, and often.

So because of that, and because it seems I’ve been sick with some odd illness or another since before I could talk, the hypochondriac comments have also been a hallmark of my existence. It doesn’t help that as an adult, I’ve also suffered from anxiety and panic disorder. If you’re mentally ill, it’s super easy for everyone from doctors to acquaintances to chock up your physical symptoms to something you’ve made up in your mind.

But here’s the thing–– being chronically ill sucks. It’s physically trying because hey, pain, but it’s also mentally trying for a number of unfun reasons. And one of the biggest reasons? Feeling like you have to prove to people how sick you really are.

When people reach for the hypochondriac thing, it makes patients feel like they have to prove themselves–– and believe me, they can. My illness is “invisible,” but I could show you blood panels that “prove” just how high the inflammation in my body is. Better yet, if I’m feeling particularly sassy, I can show you a picture of the inside of my colon. Because I have it on my phone.

Point being, you should never be making an ill person feel like they have to prove themselves to you. I know it sounds unbelievable that I’m flaring yet again, or that I’ve got another infection. But since I’m the one who has to deal with that physically, instead of opting for emotions like disbelief or skepticism, go for support. Honestly, the best thing a person could give most sick patients is unyielding support and belief.

And when you don’t believe someone who’s sick, you’re probably also making them doubt themselves, which can be bad for their health. Because I had grown up with bad internalized feelings surrounding feeling like a hypochondriac, it took way longer than it should have for me to be diagnosed with Crohn’s. I thought having stomach aches on a daily basis and not being able to eat was somehow a thing I had done to myself. That’s why, while my diagnosis was one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with, it was also a relief–– I wasn’t crazy. There was something actually, medically wrong.

While there are always going to be people out there who exaggerate their symptoms for attention or who genuinely are hypochondriacs, the number of those people is much smaller than the number of people actually suffering every single day from random diseases and weird aches and pains. So before you call me a hypochondriac, think about just being a kinder human instead. Unless of course you really want to see the inside of my colon, because we can make that happen, too.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pajama Pants

A little under a year ago, I was going through the chronic illness thing alone. Aside from twice-yearly gastroenterologist visits where I got my magic pills refilled, I rarely talked about having Crohn’s. Hell, sometimes I even forgot I had it. It was a magical time where I dated and danced and drank and ate nachos like there was no tomorrow.

But right around last Thanksgiving that all started to change. My magic pills stopped working. I was (attempting) to live my best Los Angeles life when my symptoms took on new levels of life-sucking. And then I ended up in a hospital a few miles from the beach wondering how things got so far from the life I’d imagined so damn quickly.

It was a few months later that I began blogging about my experiences with chronic illness. As a writer who was too distracted by my symptoms to think of much else, it seemed like a natural creative outlet for me–– and a great way to avoid ranting my loved ones’ ears off.

In the months since, my symptoms have gotten better, and then way worse, and then better again, and then worse, and then–– you get the idea. Life is a weird roller coaster, my particular ride just happens to involve more pain meds than the average. But the blog part of this crazy ride of life has actually brought me something really beautiful: the online chronic illness community.

Unless you’re a sick kid yourself, you probably aren’t aware that #Crohns and #ChronicIllness are super popular, active hashtags on instagram. #ChronicLife will get you a constant stream of results on Twitter. Facebook is full of private support groups for people with pretty much any kind of illness you can imagine.

I spent the first several years of my disease feeling pretty alone in it–– I didn’t know anyone in real life who had it, and all the articles I read online were full of stuffy medical jargon. Finding the little corner of the internet devoted to real people with the same problems I have has been comforting. If I’m having a bad day, one visit to the #Spoonie hashtag will net me dozens of people to commiserate with. If I’m having a good day, I can spread the positivity and love the same way.

Infusion day selfies are a thing, who knew

So while my last post may be about how the internet is ruining us, I also believe the inverse: the internet has brought me some really nice people who know better than anyone else how much of a celebration it is to taper off of prednisone, or how bad it sucks on days you feel like you don’t own enough heating pads.

And in fact, blogging about my situation has also opened my eyes up to the fact that I was previously mistaken–– I know plenty of people in real life who are dealing with chronic illness. They’re just doing it pretty quietly, the way I used to. I’ve had old middle school classmates reach out, family friends, people I met once at a party. And the thing is, even though we may have nothing else in common, having this one huge thing makes all the difference. It bonds us in a weird sisterhood (or brotherhood, hey dudes) of people who “get it.”

So to my fellow chronic illness-havers, out there, keep on keepin’ on. Keep sharing your stories of how to make Humira shots less painful and what foods you make that don’t rile up your intestines and what exercises are easy on your joints. Keep sharing pictures of you on good days playing with your cute dogs or out for drinks with friends or binging Netflix because you want to, not because you don’t have the energy for anything else.

Thanks for the constant reminder that no one is ever as alone as they might feel, and that the roller coaster has as many ups as it does downs.

***

In a bit of shameless self-promo, the lovely people of the online chronic illness community nominated me for a health activism award. If you feel so inclined, you can vote for me here. Leonardo DiCaprio and cute kittens everywhere will thank you.

Can I Live?

The internet is ruining us.

The internet is my lifelong bad boyfriend. I love it, and crave it’s approval, and at this point, it literally pays the bills. 99% of the time, I think the internet is the fucking best–– especially when it gives me cat gifs or videos of porcupines eating corn on the cob.

But as with almost all great things, there’s a downside. When you have access to everyone’s thoughts and opinions, you have access to everyone’s thoughts and opinions. And sometimes, those opinions suck.

Take random internet opinions (like mine) with a grain or 50 of salt.

Back yonder when people still actually had to show up to plans they made because they couldn’t bail via text, the only opinions on our choices that really mattered to us were those of like, our family, our good friends, and our dogs. But now, thanks to the inconceivably massive reach of the internet, opinions are flying at us from all directions, all the time. People who think we should all be gluten free versus people who think gluten allergies are made up. People who think breastfeeding is the only surefire way to make sure your child doesn’t grow up to be a serial killer. People who think Scott Baio deserves a shot at political commentating.

The thing about all the people behind screens with their opinions is that they don’t know you. Or even if they do–– even if they’re the pastor’s wife at your church or your best friend’s new girlfriend–– they don’t necessarily know what’s best for you. We choose who to confide in, who to ask for advice, for a reason. We pick our best friends because we trust them, and we know they know us better than anyone else. I know which one to go to when I need a sympathetic ear. I know which one to go to when I have an ill-advised crush. I know which one to go to when I need someone to pull me back to reality. And none of those people are bloggers or twitter personalities or talk show hosts.

When you’re chronically ill, you’re bound to come across just about every opinion possible on how you should be living your life–– not only socially and politically, but also health-wise, which at best is annoying and at its worst can be dangerous. You’ll have people blogging about how yoga cured them, or trying to sell you a diet plan, or worshipping at the altar of essential oils. You’ll have friends of friends sending you articles about “cures” and randoms implying that you brought your disease on yourself by eating too many carbs or spending too much time watching TV as a kid. The thing about these opinions is that for pretty much any opinion that exists on the internet, the inverse of it exists as well. So maybe put down the Google and just talk to your doctor and some fellow patients and friends that you really trust.

I trust this one's opinion because she's known me for as long as I've been alive.

So next time you’re on the other side of things and tempted to take a hard stance on something and make a sweeping judgement, bite your tongue–– both so you shut up and so you start having a Pavlovian response between being judgey and being in serious mouth pain. If you hear someone talking about how they plan to adopt, remember that you don’t know the ins and outs of their situation and refrain from yelling “BUT YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON REAL MOTHERHOOD,” like a giant douche. If someone tells you they send their kids to park district pre-school, don’t launch into a lecture about how kids need to learn Portuguese by age four. If someone tells you they don’t eat meat, maybe just live and let live and don’t talk about how great the lamb you had last night tasted.

Moral of the story here is try not to be a dick, let people live their lives, and if you need a break from internet opinions, turn your phone off and play with your cats until you forget your step-grandma’s judgey, Trump-supporting Facebook account exists.

C’est la vie, yo.

I'm Bad At Keeping Secrets

I’m not someone who has many secrets–– clearly, considering my social media footprint is as big as a continent.

But I do have a few, like the level of embarrassing songs I sing while cleaning my house, or the 90’s celebrities I still occasionally have dreams about marrying. My biggest secret as of late? I’m feeling better.

You’re probably asking yourself why the hell that would be a secret. After 8+ months of Saturday nights in, a monumentally bloated face, and a diet more restrictive than Beyonce-inspired veganism, wouldn’t I want to shout “I’M FEELING BETTER” from the rooftops?

Other things that will make you feel better: new lipstick, dramatic hair changes.

Yes and no. I’m thrilled to be feeling better. I’m thrilled to be weaned off prednisone. But what most normal-health-functioning people don’t realize is that for the chronically ill, “better” is a spectrum. I don’t go from sick to well in a day flat. When I say “I’m feeling better,” it simply means that currently, I’m having more good days than bad days, which is something to celebrate.

But if I take that celebration public, I’m nervous about the response. I’m nervous that people will assume “better” means I’m back to my vodka drinking, burger eating, dancing-til-the-bars-close self (and believe me–– I wish that were the case. That girl was fucking fun.) I’m worried if they get it in their heads that I’m “better,” they’ll assume all the bad days are behind me. They’ll expect too much, and they’ll be disappointed.

So I guess I’m outing my secret right now–– I’m feeling better. My hair stopped falling out. I’ve started to drop some of the weight prednisone packed on me. I’m getting more sleep. I can occasionally eat candy and chips and not worry my intestines are gonna fall out of my butt as a result.

On the flip side, the fatigue still lingers like a bad ex-boyfriend who won’t stop texting me. I still go to bed at around eight most nights. I still take ten pills a day, on average. I still have to stick to a diet of mostly bland foods like fish, bread, and eggs. I’m still dying for a cheeseburger and a big ass sangria.

Feeling good enough to spend the day with my best friends and their moms a few weeks back

So maybe instead of saying I’m better, I’ll just say I’m on an upswing. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel that’s been this flare. I know now that an autoimmune disease isn’t something you can just ignore and hope it goes away–– it’s part of my life, and I’ll always be at risk of another life-altering health situation. But I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic about the parts of me that are feeling better. And I’m choosing, based on writing this, to stop keeping it a secret.

So HEY GUYS, I’M FEELING BETTER. Let’s just celebrate the news at like, 5 PM so I can still be in bed by 8.

The Economics of Illness

Being sick is expensive. Being chronically sick is extra expensive, because it never ends.

Among the many parts of being sick that I often think about when I’m thinking “damn, this is unfair,” that’s honestly what I think about the most. Being sick is exorbitantly, life-ruining-ly expensive.

There’s the typical costs that everyone probably associates with an illness–– hospital visits, fancy new medications, procedures and CT scans. Thanks to insurance (LITERALLY thanks, Obama) these costs are seriously lowered, but “lowered” from their crazy high initial costs still comes out to “too much money for a 24 year old with student loan debt.” I think that’s the technical total on my last hospital bill.

Those are what we call the direct costs. It’s estimated that the average patient with Crohn’s pays about $18,000 per year in direct costs. Basically, if I didn’t have Crohn’s I could take the money I saved and buy a brand new Volkswagon Jetta every year for the rest of my life. I would love a goddamn Jetta.

Hospital visits ain't cheap, but they are incredibly stylish.

But that’s just direct costs–– this doesn’t include the many other things the chronically ill drop cash on. Here’s a quick rundown of (usually expensive) alternative treatments and things that help ease the pain: essential oils, epsom salts, icy hot patches and creams, heating pads, special health foods, supplements, acupuncture treatments, therapy, etc. Every human with an Instagram these days seems to be trying to sell me a protein shake or a cookbook that will cure me. But the thing is, a lot of times when you’re sick, you’ll try anything that just might make you feel better. And that keeps racking up your costs.

At the end of the day, sick people are dropping fatty cash trying to get to the minimum level of functioning at healthy people wake up with every day.

I plan for my future knowing that while my peers will be making car payments and whittling down their student loans, I’ll be doing all of those things plus trying to pay to keep my Crohn’s at bay. Chronic illness is like having a really shitty extra monthly utility bill that you didn’t ask for, but instead of giving you A/C, it keeps you alive. That’s one of the reasons I’m a politically active person–– it’s easy to think that things like health insurance don’t matter all that much until you’re the one who needs help. It’s easy to think your vote doesn’t matter when you’re healthy, but for people like me, laws like those that make it illegal for companies to discriminate against pre-existing conditions are of phenomenal importance.

Without health insurance, the liquid gold they pump into my veins every 8 weeks costs a cool $20k

If I don’t have insurance, I can’t get my medication. If I can’t get my medication, my body stops tolerating food. If I can’t eat, I can’t live and work and be a functioning member of society.

So when it comes down to it, it’s not just impersonal dollars and cents and figures presented in pretty charts on MSNBC. It’s people like me, working and saving and buying kombucha.

Celebrities- They're Just Like Us!

If you follow celebrity news as ardently as I do, you probably already know Selena Gomez has lupus.

But because I realize not everyone keeps up with the Kardashians and checks TMZ on the regular, let me catch you up. About a year or so ago, Selena Gomez (former Disney star, current pop star, for the truly uninitiated reader) went on the Ellen Show and announced that the reason she’d been MIA from the spotlight was that she’d been undergoing chemotherapy to treat her lupus. It also explained the weight gain that paparazzi and some rude 12 year olds had been hounding her for. “Selena Gomez has lupus” made headlines for a few days, and then everyone by-and-large stopped discussing it.

Until now–– Selena’s autoimmune disease has twitter abuzz again because she’s taking time off of her tour because of it. I commend anyone who chooses to go through their chronic illness in such a public forum, whether it’s educating a stranger at a party or educating millions of fans via Instagram. But Gomez is taking it one step further in my mind and making it all that much more admirable.

The singer’s statement doesn’t just say she’s taking time off due to physical symptoms, but rather specifies that she’s struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression, all of which have stemmed from her disease. She easily could’ve pinned her problems on strictly physical stress, but she’s going one step forward and tackling the mental health stigma while she’s at it.

I have a hard enough time dealing with the trials and tribulations of a chronic illness, and I work a normal 9-5 and spend most of my free time resting. I can’t imagine the toll a world tour would take on someone with an autoimmune disease. And with that physical toll, as any sick person can tell you, comes a mental hurdle that can be even tougher to clear.

When you’re sick, it’s hard not to be anxious–– you have to think about everything. Any scenario that might happen has to be planned for. There’s also anxiety present in the fear of letting others down: is my sickness making my friends and family’s lives harder? And there’s the ever-present anxiety over what people think of you: do they think I’m talking about my illness for attention? Do they think I should be pushing myself harder to be normal? Do they think my illness is my fault?

For a celebrity, I imagine the fear of what people are thinking and saying about you is magnified on a global scale. And while I just sit here and wonder if people are saying something bad, Selena Gomez can pick up a tabloid and see the things they’re saying about her.

And when all of that anxiety and physical illness compounds on itself, it’s no wonder that so many chronic illness patients deal with depression. Having to put your life (or your successful world tour) on pause because you’re too sick can make you feel pretty hopeless. It’s easy to go down a mental black hole and think you’ll never get out.

But here’s why Selena’s case is relevant to everyone–– she’s doing the exact best thing she can be in this scenario. She’s listening to her body and mind and taking time to rest, even when I’m sure doing so was a difficult decision. She’s refusing to let expectations dictate her health. And not only that, she’s being open about her experience. Rather than claiming exhaustion or hiding behind some PR-spin excuse, she’s sharing her experience with lupus (and the mental illness that goes with it) with her fans and the world.

I heard that after her announcement, searches for “what is lupus?” went up exponentially. The more people with a platform use it to create awareness for autoimmune disease, the less patients have to suffer. So if you’re feeling braver than usual and want to educate others on your illness, channel your inner-Selena Gomez. Just don’t run out and try to date Justin Bieber, okay? Kid seems like bad news.

Repeat After Me: Being Sick is Not a Point of Failure

There’s no definitive cause to Crohn’s disease. Like a variety of other diseases from Ulcerative Colitis to Lupus to Alopecia, it’s a mysterious variety of factors that may or may not cause illness to develop in a patient. Suffice it to say–– it’s not the patient’s fault that they have these diseases.

I definitely didn’t ask for Crohn’s disease. I was just a high school junior, living my life, studying for the ACT, working at Applebee’s, and watching way too much Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I was just like all my friends, until my body decided that food wasn’t a thing it was going to put up with anymore. And just like that, I went from healthy 17-year-old to chronic illness patient for life. My intestines did not consult me about this.

And here’s the thing–– our society places a really high premium on being healthy. Which is great! It (hopefully) stops people from eating french fries for every meal, because who wouldn’t want to do that if health weren’t a factor? It keeps us exercising, and eating well, and all of those other good, Instagrammable things. We should definitely all be aware of the parts of our health that are within our control, like cholesterol levels and BMI, as much as we can. But what about the parts that are out of our control?

When we talk about health like it’s a personal success, the problem is that we all too often then talk about illness like it’s a personal failure. So many people pride themselves on not having to take pharmaceuticals, or on getting by on yoga and their unrelenting positivity. But that puts those of us who kind of need pills and infusions and fancy CT machines in a shitty spot.

I may not have hiked the Grand Canyon but I looked HELLA athletic sitting on the edge.

So even if you think Big Pharma is evil and ruining America, please try to keep that to yourself when talking to someone with a serious illness. Believe me, we don’t want to be on all these pills. We don’t want to be dependent on so many things to get by. But we are, and it’s not something we’ve chosen. Being sick is not a failing on our part, and doing what we have to do to get through it is also not open to judgement. Believing we as humans don’t “need” pills for health is a viewpoint that all too often comes from a place of privilege. Just because you personally don’t need medication to make it through the day does not mean others don’t.

So I’m not saying we should stop celebrating the healthy–– marathon runners are crazy wonderful mutants and they deserve those medals and the little “26.2” bumper stickers to put on their Jeeps. But just make sure that when you are going after your own health goals, or talking to someone else about theirs, that we aren’t all the same. For a normal person a health goal might be training for a triathlon. For someone with a chronic disease, a health goal might be a walk around the block or, if you’re me, some incredibly low-key yoga. All options are valid and great, and one is not better than the other.

So practice a little empathy next time you’re around the water cooler talking diets or exercise regimens. We can’t all climb Everest, but hopefully we can all make ourselves feel successful in one way or another.

I Kind of Need You to Stop Asking if I'm "Better"

It’s rare, in this wacky journey that is my chronic-illness-having, that I openly express frustration. That’s mainly because I don’t think it’s all that productive, and I have had productivity beaten into me for all of my honors student life. I’d much rather spend my time talking and commiserating with other cool, chronically ill people, or educating friends and family on what it’s like to have a sickness that isn’t going away. But some days, the frustrated part wins. It wins hard.

The frustrated part comes out when my steroids are giving me insomnia, and I only slept three hours a night this week. The frustrated part comes out when my hair starts falling out every time I touch it. The frustrated part comes out when I realize my meds have given me a weird hand tremor and suddenly I feel way more like someone’s great aunt than like a 24 year-old.

But socially, the frustrated part comes out when someone asks the question I’m constantly dreading: are you feeling better?

The reason I dread this question so actively is because there are no answers to it that will make the people in my life happy–– which is something I desperately want to do. I would love to tell you that yes, in fact, I have miraculously come out of this flare and it will probably never happen again and, as it turns out, I am healthy as a horse. Turns out, though, that would be as honest as telling you that I just met Beyonce and she asked me to model her new athleisure line. Which is to say it’s a big old lie, or just a dream I had once.

I’m not a total pessimist. Some days I am feeling better! And in the moment you ask, I just might be. But the problem is, I’m living in a really long flare. And when this flare ends, I’m not sure how long I’ll have until my health turns on me again. That’s the nature of chronic illness: unpredictability. I have good days and bad days. Honestly, it changes down to the minute. Last week I called my mom in the morning to tell her I was feeling better than I had in weeks and I was ready to take life on–– and by 6 PM, I was in so much abdominal pain I was crying on my bedroom floor, popping Norco like it was a pill in Ibiza. (Am I using that pop culture reference right? I haven’t been out in a while.)

So when you ask if I’m feeling better, I feel obligated to tell you yes, because it’s understood that it’s what you want to hear. If you have a chronically ill person in your life, I’m not saying you should assume they feel like shit all the time and not ask at all. But there are ways to talk about illness that come off as genuinely curious and helpful that don’t make the person in question feel bad for not feeling better. Great things to say include “Hey, just checking in to see how you’re feeling. Thinking about you,” or “Can I come over and watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt with you until we both melt into the couch cushions?” Showing you care and are trying to get it will go a million and one miles to getting someone to open up to you about how they really feel–– which might not be better, but will be important to hear.

2016 is Halfway Over?

I never imagined I’d spend my 24th year in bed.

Well, maybe I did, but in my imagination it was maybe in a more fun way involving traveling to Europe and meeting a whimsical Italian man and spending my 24th year in his bed.

Or not. Sorry mom and dad.

But seriously–– I just saw a tweet about how “2016 is halfway over!” and I went slightly insane. The Crohn’s flare from hell started for me in early February, which means I’ve officially been sick for 5 out of the 6 months of this year. Not exactly the New Years Wish I had in mind, you know?

My 24th birthday, and coincidentally the last hurrah of my 2016 social life. I didn't know when this picture was taken, but I was days away from the worst autoimmune flare of my life thus far!

But, I think it also says some important things about expectations. And how we need to get rid of them all together. Possibly a dramatic statement, but bear with me. Whether you’re sick or not, everyone my age seems to be rushing around, worrying they’re going to miss out on something. Some magazine somewhere once called it FOMO and that stuck in the way annoying acronyms do, so let’s call it that.

Which is to say that we only feel like we’re missing out because we subscribe to some random belief that there’s a certain set of experiences we should be having, and that if we aren’t having them, we’re somehow doing life wrong. If we aren’t traveling the world at 21, we’ll be bitter old people one day who talk about how we never got high in Amsterdam when we had the chance. If we aren’t at the top of our career game by 25, we’re probably doomed to mediocre cold-calling jobs for life. If we aren’t going on dates every weekend, or having babies, then we aren’t living up to expectations.

Consider this, though: whose expectations are they? Are they honestly your own, or are they just expectations you have because tv and movies and your great aunt made you think there’s a timeline on which life must be properly lived?

Being forced to spend the first half of my 24th year in bed has taught me a little bit about priorities, and about throwing those expectations and five year plans out the window. Now, instead of asking myself “what do I need to do today to be on track so I don’t miss anything?” I tend to think more along the lines of: “what can I do today to be happy?” And honestly, it’s a shift in thinking that has made a world of difference.

My main Friday night companions.

I still want to have a job I love. I still want to have some major achievements, like getting a book published. I still want to get married, and have babies, and travel. I still want to have fun experiences like publicly urinating at a music festival or something else young people are supposed to do. But I’m no longer going to rush it and worry about the timeline. 

And if some of those things don’t happen for me? That’s okay too, because there’s a very wise quote out there that goes something like “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” So instead of rushing through life trying to do everything, I might take a nap. Or watch Orange is the New Black. Or play with my cats. And all those little happy moments will amount to a pretty cool life.

Love and Light and Purple Tutus

Meet Lizzie, the most fabulous girl at all of Take Steps Chicago

Sometimes the world can seem like an irredeemably sad place. When surrounded by hate and injustice, after I cry and get angry, I like to take a turn to focus on the small pieces of my life that bring love and light to the world.

It’s a concept I learned in therapy to cope with the day-to-day mental struggles of chronic illness–– on any given day, you can list three good things. On some days, they might be huge happies: you got a promotion, you welcomed a new baby into the family, you finally found a new medication that works for you. On other days, it can be much harder to think of three positives. But I find if I dig a little, I can always find something: the bus was there right when I got to the stop. My favorite song came on the radio twice today. I ate a really solid bagel sandwich.

Listing things that are good may sound silly–– believe me, I’ve had many friends and family goodnaturedly roll their eyes at me when I push them to find three things to be happy about when they’re having a bad day. But as it turns out, life is actually made up of these little, seemingly trivial things. Sure, promotions and babies are great–– but if you live your whole life seeking big things to sustain your happiness, it will probably continue to elude you.

So here are my three happies for today:

1. I discovered a really great new dog Instagram account.
2. I got to chat with my sister for a bit.
3. I had a really great burst of creative inspiration.

See? Nothing life altering. I didn’t cure cancer or win a million dollars, but listing out the little things is an immediate mood-booster, and a quick way to find the good in a day that maybe seemed like actual garbage before. And when that doesn’t work, I go back to some old “good days.” This past weekend was the best weekend I’ve had in a long time–– not only did I go buy stacks on stacks on stacks of used books at the Printer’s Row Lit Fest, but Saturday was finally Chicago’s CCFA walk.

I’d been looking forward to the day for months now, as I’m sure anyone who follows me on social media can attest, but it truly exceeded my greatest expectations. Over 20 of my closest friends and family showed up to walk for me, from my parents to my cousins to my co-workers to my childhood best friends and everyone in between. I’ve never felt so much love in one steaming-hot city park.

My cousins even decked out their adorable babies in homemade team shirts, a move that almost brought me to tears I was so excited and heart-warmed. I might be biased, but it probably made my team the winner in the cuteness category.

We raised over $1,700 for CCFA thanks to almost 40 amazing donors who all came together to support a girl with some malfunctioning intestines, and I can’t thank everyone enough. I’ve never been so excited to have so many thank you notes to write. I even got a chance to be interviewed about my experience with Crohn’s in an effort improve life for other patients, so in addition to raising hella cash, we also raised a lot of awareness.

So to the CCFA employees and volunteers who helped out to make the walk happen to the donors who consistently made my day to the friends who basically walked a 5k in 100 degree heat–– THANK YOU. YOU ARE THE LOVE AND LIGHT THIS WORLD NEEDS.