Anger is a Productive Emotion and You're Allowed to Feel It.

Anger is a productive emotion and you’re allowed to feel it.

If I could, I would stitch that on a pillow and give it to everyone I know. I would also put said pillows in every room of my house.

That’s how important a reminder I think it is. I’m a big believer in letting yourself feel your emotions–– acknowledging when life is great and you’re happy, letting yourself wallow for a few hours if you need to when you’re sad. But anger is a tougher emotion for me. It’s not as palatable to the general public, so sometimes I stray from it and pretend not to feel it.

I have the opposite of “resting bitch face.” This is to say that even if I’m in a terrible mood, you’d probably never know, because the face I’m showing the world is at best, happy, and at worst, neutral. Never angry. Never upset. Never impatient. Never an emotion that might inconvenience.

So what happens when you have every reason and right to be angry? There’s such a push for positivity, which I think is great. Positivity gets me through 99% of my days. But what about the other 1%? The days where you wake up and your symptoms are so bad you can’t get out of bed? The days where your steroid-induced tremors cause you to drop a cupcake in your own lap at a family party? The days when it feels like life is one step forward and five steps back?

Do you push yourself to look on the bright side and be more positive? I’ve tried that, but in my experience trying to force yourself to feel feelings that aren’t authentic to you at the moment will generally just make you feel worse. So I’m trying something new. I’m giving myself permission to just be angry.

I’m giving myself permission to vent, whether it’s to my best friends or my mom or my journal (or this blog). I’m giving myself permission to eat a really big piece of cake and listen to “Don’t Hurt Yourself” on repeat and channel my inner-scorned-Beyonce. I’m giving myself permission to lean into the anger and truly feel it. Because when you’re young and sick and feel like you’re missing out on real life, you’ve got some stuff to be angry about. I don’t carry it around on a daily basis and let it define me, but on the particularly bad days when anger rears its ugly head, I no longer try to force it back down into a neat little box. I let it out, and it feels good.

So if you’re angry at the world on a given day–– because you haven’t gotten the promotion you deserve, or because you’re feeling underappreciated in your relationship, or because a sexual predator just won the presidency and you can’t even win a freaking sweepstakes–– really feel it. And use that anger to fuel something else, whether it’s a creative pursuit, or a foray into political advocacy, or just a really great shower sing-a-long to Alanis Morissette (the ultimate “angry and not sorry about it” woman of our time). Anger, when harnessed correctly, can make us powerful little storms, as long as we know how to control it without letting it control us. So be happy, be sad, be mad–– be whatever it is you are today, and know that it’s okay.

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.

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.

Friends With (Medical) Benefits

When you’re chronically ill, it’s easy to get caught up in your own stuff. When you spend most of your days in some level of pain and discomfort, it’s easy to think you’re the only one struggling. But lately I’ve been thinking more about how my struggles with Crohn’s affect the people around me, and the ways caring about a sick person can make you feel kind of helpless.

While having a chronic illness is definitely a huge daily challenge, I can also easily see the challenge that comes from seeing someone you love sick with no light at the end of the tunnel. That’s why I don’t get offended (or at least I try not to) when people ask if I’m better. While I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never be “better” by traditional standards, I can’t necessarily expect my loved ones to come to that acceptance so quickly.

Luckily I’ve been surrounded by some exceptionally supportive people. My friends and family prove to me every day that even if not everybody “gets it,” I am at the very least blessed with people who care enough to try. I could easily write a novel about the many ways in which these people have helped me, and I hope I tell them enough how appreciative I am of them.

Kelsey (front and center) has been my best friend since I was 10, and she does  things like having her whole PA class wear purple for World IBD Day because she is a better friend than any human deserves.

So for anyone with a chronically ill person in their life, here’s the best advice I can give you on how to be a good friend to a sick person, as evidenced so flawlessly by my wonderful best friends.

Listen up. Honestly, the biggest thing you can do is provide a commiserating ear. One of the biggest issues I deal with in terms of my illness is guilt–– guilt that I’m bothering the people I love with my complaints about my symptoms. But when you’re going through a patch of bad health, new symptoms can seem like they’re popping up every day, and it gets incredibly lonely if you have no one to vent to. Luckily, I have a few friends who I know I can text no matter what with unsolicited complaints such as “My joint pain is making it hard to eat my cereal. Send help.”

Don’t Question Limitations. Listen–– people with chronic illnesses probably already feel guilty about the various accommodations they need. So if they tell you they can’t spend long amounts of time out in the heat, or that they need a certain amount of rest between activities, don’t question them or pressure them to push through.

Be a cheering up squad. People with chronic illnesses often suffer from depression, because having a chronic illness sucks. It isolates you and makes you feel like you aren’t in control of your own body or life. I’m very good at hiding my own bouts of sadness because I don’t want to burden anyone. That being said, it means the world when a friend sees through the facade and realizes I’m in need of some encouragement–– whether that means a care package from my mom or a nice note (I adore snail mail.) My best friend Sarah recently brought me back a stuffed Baymax from Disney World, and I was so freaking touched to have my own personal healthcare companion that I pretty much tear up every time I look at him.

Not only do I have my own Baymax friend, but I have evidence of his adventures at Disney!

Celebrate small victories. For the average person, going on a walk or staying up past 10 isn’t an accomplishment. But for a chronically ill person, these little things can be huge. I recently got the okay from my doctor to taper off my steroids, and my best friend Kelsey has texted me every. single. day. To wish me a happy taper day 5, or 7, or what have you. It means the world to know that someone cares enough to check in, and also that someone else gets how exciting this seemingly small step is for me.

If you’re grossed out, don’t show it. I have Crohn’s disease. Gross stuff happens. A good week for me during this flare involves not having internal bleeding. There are plenty of people in my life that I have to lie to in order to spare them from the unfortunate GI symptoms that are my daily life. You know who I don’t have to do that with? My best friends. If they ask me to hang out and I can’t because of some strategically gross Crohn’s symptoms, I now send them this video and no more questions are asked.

Show up. The amount of friends and family who came out to my CCFA walk was overwhelming and lovely. The amount of friends who have given up a Saturday night to watch movies with me on my couch until I fall asleep at 8 PM is heartwarming. I’m of the opinion that bar-hopping friends come and go, but the people who will hang out with you when you aren’t very fun are forever.

So if you’re the friend or family member of someone with a chronic illness, know that we love you. We love you when you get it, we love you when you don’t exactly get it, and we even love you when pain-induced insomnia makes us cranky jerks. So thanks for being extra kind in a world that needs it. And to my sister–– thanks for the cookies.

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.

I'm The Sick Girl, But I'm Everything Else, Too.

“You are not your disease.”

That’s something people like to say when you’re sick. And it’s true! It’s so true. You are not your disease. A diagnosis does not define your character. But sometimes when people say “you are not your disease,” what they really mean is “please stop talking about your disease as it is making me uncomfortable and I would like to talk about more pleasant matters, like what happened last night on The Bachelorette.”

I am not my disease. I know this. But my disease does inform a lot of the things I do and feel, because duh. When you’re in pain or discomfort on a daily basis, it’s going to inform parts of you. When you can’t socialize with your friends because you’re having a terrible fatigue day, it’s going to affect you. Accepting that goes a long way toward stabilizing your mental health. But that’s all the disease is–– a part of me. It defines me in the way that all of the other parts define me, both good and bad.

And in a flare like the present one, I do sometimes worry that my life revolves around my illness. My planner is full of doctor’s appointments, infusions, and support groups. My social media posts look like the diary of a grandma who really likes to Instagram. I don’t have exciting weekend plans to contribute at the water cooler–– just maybe a story about the movie I watched this weekend (which was Beauty & The Beast, if you were wondering. It really holds up).

I am a girl who makes my friends dress up like Taylor Swift

So today I got to thinking–– does your life center too much around your illness? What’s your identity these days aside from sick girl? And here’s what I came up with. These are all (or some) of the things, aside from a Crohn’s Disease diagnosis, that make me “me.”

I am a writer. This is central to my character and humanity. Even when I can’t get my shit together long enough to be working on a legitimate project with any sort of discipline, I am always writing bits and pieces and notes and letters and blogs and first acts of plays I will never finish.

I am a cat mom. I have embraced cat-lady-dom in full force with my little Russian Blue Alfie and my roommate’s cat, Tiny. They make my days so much more adorable and sunshiney and even writing this makes me want to devolve into a pile of baby-talking, cat-toy-buying mush.

I am a compulsive reader. More detrimentally to my paycheck, I am a compulsive book-buyer. Everything from classics to modern lit to young adult fiction to beach reads to memoirs–– I will read it. Book stores and libraries house some of my favorite memories and generally make me feel safe.

I am a Taylor Swift super fan. I know every word of every song by heart. Last summer I spent way too much of my disposable income to see her two nights in a row in Chicago. I grew up with her songs, and they will always hold a special place in my heart. I once had a Taylor Swift themed birthday party in which everyone was forcefully encouraged to dress up like her. She liked a picture of my birthday cake on Tumblr and I cried.

I am a girl who drives to Iowa on a cold Saturday to canvass for the caucus

I am a political junkie. I am a lifelong democrat who watches CNN for fun. I have a favorite political analyst (her name is Donna and she loves a sassy jacket.) #ImWithHer, and I’ve got the t-shirt and the button to prove it.

I’m a comedian, in whatever way you would like to take that. I have dabbled in every form of making people laugh from stand up to web series to sketch writing and beyond. Making other people happy makes me happy, and making them laugh is the best way I know how to do that. (There is also, undeniably, a power aspect, as I am probably a tiny dictator of fun.)

I am a volunteer. I like to give time and effort to a cause. As a kid, this took the form of community service clubs and volunteer hours and the like. Now I like to support the causes of others, speak up about issues that mean something to me, and raise money for cool organizations I feel strongly about (like CCFA.)

I am a friend. I will give you advice when you think you want to dump your boyfriend. I will make you a sad songs mixtape when you do. I will mail you a happy gift when you’re stressed, or when you’ve accomplished something awesome. I will support your startups, your side hustles, your stories and your art. I will cheer you on forever. And even when I’m too sick to make it to your party, I will send you unending snapchats of the aforementioned cat children (jury is still out on if this makes me a good friend or an annoying one, but hey.)

So that’s me. Sick girl, funny girl, obsessed-with-pop music and shirts with cats on them girl. If you’re chronically ill, I highly recommend this little activity of writing down who you are outside of your illness. Sometimes we all need a reminder that we don’t have to be just one thing, and we don’t have to fit into neat little boxes. I have a lot of messy, disorganized boxes, and those are pretty great as well.

Books Are Uniquely Portable Magic

I love to read. Always have. When I was little, this meant some friendly teasing about the irony my last name from some kids who were too young to understand irony. As an adult, it’s meant an English degree and a shelf full of “to-reads” I can never quite catch up to before buying even more.

It always baffled me, in fact, that there were people out there who didn’t like to read. What was there to not like about picking up a book and being somewhere else for an hour? Whether it was escaping my own problems through someone else’s or feeling understood, there was nothing like a book.

As an adult, it’s gotten a little harder to find time to read for fun. In college I was constantly reading because I was an English major–– it’s kind of part of the territory–– but now as someone with a full time job, my books to-read were gathering dust on the shelf. I was hitting up the easy reads like memoirs, and doing so at a snail’s pace. And I didn’t feel like myself because of it.

Some favorite Christmas gift selections

Fast forward to early February–– I got sick, really sick, and fast. I went from dancing my face off on my 24th birthday to fainting from pain in the backseat Uber on my way home from work in 2 days flat. Since then, I’ve been in a pretty aggressive flare that has knocked my body (and more importantly, my social life) on its ass. These days, I don’t happy hour–– I try to stay awake through a work day and then have a happy hour with me, my couch, and no fewer than two heating pads.

So that all sounds no fun, right? Except I’ve been conditioned to be ever the optimist, so I was recently thinking about the good things this flare has brought me. I eat healthier. I prioritize my health more. I actually communicate with my doctors. I keep my mental health in check better than ever before. And most fun of all? I’m reading again.

Reading is a phenomenal hobby for anyone with chronic illness. It’s cheap (hey, libraries), it’s easy, and it’s a great way to entertain yourself. I live with a roommate, but a lot of times when I have to stay in on a Friday night thanks to my symptoms, it’s just me and my emotionally withholding cats. And there’s only so much Netflixing a person can feasibly do–– believe me. But books provide an outlet that’s unlike anything else, where I can completely forget about my own circumstances or whatever is bothering me and just engross myself in a good story.

This is my current favorite place to read–– the park across the street from my apartment.

Also, as a person with chronic illness, I spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting for prescriptions, waiting for doctors, waiting for infusions to be done. And I know that we all have the internet in the palm of our hands these days, and I’m as addicted to Twitter as the next girl. But I do think there’s something great about having a book waiting in your bag for moments like that. A good story never fails to calm me down when I’m waiting to get bloodwork done or tackle an annoying new CT scan. I would even go as far as saying “How To Build A Girl” made the barium I had to drink last month taste bearable. It’s true what they say about books being portable magic.

So in terms of silver linings to seemingly unfortunate situations like bad health, I’ll definitely take more time to read. As a smart teacher once told me, “we can only write in words we know.” Reading not only gives me an escape and a way to spend my sick time–– it makes me better able to express myself. And when you’re living life on intermittent bed rest, helping others understand becomes paramount.

So to books I say: thank you for being the most constant and reliable companion I’ve ever had.

How I Learned To Embrace My Inner Introvert

I always thought I was an extrovert.

In retrospect, I always tried to be an extrovert, because I thought that was the correct way to be. Who doesn’t want to be the life of the party? Introvert, for some reason, had negative connotations to me. Shy. Unapproachable. Anti-social. All things that I was taught from an early age were disadvantageous to be. So I made myself loud and boisterous–– the center of attention. It took me way, way too long to realize that in almost every situation where I was forcing myself into that role, I was wildly uncomfortable.

As I’ve gotten older, I developed pretty bad anxiety. It had to do with a lot of things–– my brain chemistry, some pretty long-ingrained perfectionism, and my Crohn’s diagnosis, to name a few. But it was far too hard with my rising anxiety to pretend to be the most outgoing one in the room all the time. This was both a blessing and a curse: I was self-conscious that others would view my new “personality shift” as weird, but I also felt so much more comfortable in a middle ground.

Me in my natural habitat: at home with blankets.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy attention as much as your next narcissistic writer. But as I’ve grown into myself as an adult (especially an adult with a chronic illness), I’ve enjoyed shifting that attention to a more behind-the-scenes approach. Rather than needing to be the one yelling out a funny story at a party, I’m content to express myself through writing. Instead of forcing myself on stage, I wrote a web series and cast some friends as the leads. It’s been all about finding a happy medium. I still love to talk and meet new people, but I’ve realized I don’t need to force myself to command a room.

But then my illness got worse, and things got a bit more extreme.

For someone like myself who’s often been self-conscious about my introvertedness, being forced to stay in due to illness can really get my anxiety going. My thoughts can go from zero to doom-spiral in 60 seconds flat: do people think I’m just rude? Anti-social? God forbid, boring? And when people say things like “I’m so jealous, I would love to lay in bed all day!” Or, “You went to bed how early? That sounds great!” It can make those anxious thoughts even worse. Even though, as an introvert, I love staying in every once in awhile, staying in because of my illness isn’t a choice I’m making–– and believe me, most Friday nights, I’d way rather be doing anything but going to bed at 8.

But thanks to some nice friends and paid professionals, when that doom-spiral comes a-knocking, I remind myself of one simple fact: people don’t think about you nearly as much as you think they do.

One of the best people to stay in and build a gingerbread house in matching onesies with.

The attention-loving part of me has a pretty intense imaginary audience complex, as we all do to an extent, that believes that when I miss a party or a night out at the bar, everyone is sitting around wondering (and discussing) why. In reality, when I miss a night out at the bar, most of my friends wish me well thoughts and then go down a few tequila shots and make some bad decisions. For good or bad, I am not the crux of their thoughts for the evening.

The shitty thing about anxiety is that it’s not also simple enough as remembering logical thoughts like that, because anxiety is, by nature, illogical. But it has helped to remember that the real friends I have are never going to bail because I stay in on a Friday night. In fact, some of them might join me. With puzzles. And ginger ale. And season five of “Scandal.”

On Lena Dunham, Endometriosis, and Feeling Represented.

I had just turned 18 when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Eighteen is a weird age to be alive on the earth at all, but a particularly weird age to be told you now have a disease that is never going away. The first thing I did when I was diagnosed was inhale five and a half White Castles and a milkshake. Anyone who has ever had to do the prep for a colonoscopy knows–– you are damn hungry afterward. The second thing I did after I was diagnosed was google “celebrities with Crohn’s disease.”

“What a weird thing to do!” You’re probably thinking. But I am a good, practicing millennial, and nothing makes me feel more connected to the world around me than knowing someone with a lot of money and Twitter followers also knows my strife. Sadly, my search yielded very little. Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry are not secretly harboring intense digestive issues (at least not according to internet listicles–– the main authority of life).

So for years, I have had little insight into how a highly successful person and a Crohn’s-disease having person might live within the same body. I didn’t know any people in real life with Crohn’s–– just an occasional anecdote from a friend about how their cousin’s soccer coach has colitis, or something. But then Lena Dunham started getting real about endometriosis in a public setting.

Endometriosis and Crohn’s are totally different things, but they’re also similar in a lot of ways. Sufferers of both experience a lot of pain, have to spend a lot of time hanging out at the doctor trying to figure their insides out, etc. When in a particularly bad flare of endometriosis, it can be difficult for women to go about their daily lives.

So when Lena Dunham (whose work I admire immensely in general) posted on Instagram saying she’d be taking some time off from press for her show “Girls” to deal with her worsening endometriosis symptoms, something inside me felt understood. Here was this powerful young woman, who at an insanely young age has written a book, produced and starred in her own show, and started an awesome feminist newsletter–– and even she is not immune to the pull of her body’s illness. Even she has to know when to say “enough is enough” and just rest.

She also used the aforementioned newsletter to post a really eloquent piece on what it means to be young and chronically ill. I had always loved her for her emotional honesty as a writer, and I know many women identify with her stories of being young and figuring things out–– the “Girls” phenomenon. But to read a story of being young and figuring illness out, to me, felt revolutionary.

So while it may sound silly to need to hear “Celebrities! They’re just like us!” It honestly has helped me cope with my own limitations to see Lena speak so openly about hers. It’s a kind and necessary reminder that being sick doesn’t have to mean I can’t do the things I want to do–– and more so, that even the most successful and seemingly together among us are dealing with things behind the scenes, and taking care of yourself often has to come before everything else. People love that phrase “You have as many hours in a day as Beyonce,” but I kind of think that’s bullshit. We need more successful people out there who don’t keep up the front of always having it perfectly together. So thanks, Lena, for going public with your illness. Thanks for pulling back the Wizard of Oz style curtain and reminding sick girls with their laptops like myself that it’s okay if we don’t accomplish as much in a day as Beyonce–– as long as we take care of ourselves.

"It's The Little Things" And Other True Cliches

I have always been a weirdly ambitious person.

As a child of six, I used to tell my parents that I was going to be so successful one day that they’d need to name a new unit of money after me. Six year old me was a tiny capitalist dictator.  While normal little girls wanted to be Cinderella or a doctor or something, I wanted to be Oprah Winfrey. I wanted my own television show, my own magazine, my own empire. I used to set an alarm on summer mornings so I could be up to watch Oprah every day, taking diligent mental notes on how to become the most powerful woman in the world.

So I’m kind of a total Slytherin.

As I grew up, the dreams obviously changed, but were still always pretty grandiose. At age 24, my biggest life goal would be to write and produce my own sitcom. So you know, just your average Midwestern girl’s normal dreams.

Things Oprah and I have in common: loving bread.

I’ve been slowly but surely working toward those dreams for a long time now. I worked my ass off in school, took every writing-adjacent opportunity I could, and volunteered on live productions on the regular. I graduated college and got a job where I get paid actual money to write. I may not be Shonda Rhimes or Mindy Kaling yet, but the plan is moving along, okay?

But what happens to an aggressively ambitious person with big old dreams when that brain happens to be trapped in an arguably broken body?

When you have a chronic illness, it can really knock you on your ass without notice. It’s not something you can feasibly plan for. So when you’re trying to make plans for your life, it’s hard to do. You want to take a sick internship in New York that would open doors for your future or go travel across Asia for the experience of it, but you also know there’s a chance your disease could flare up out of the blue and ruin your well-laid plans.

My solution? Stop planning.

It’s an imperfect solution, I know. It would probably help me take over the world a la Oprah one day if I could do a bit more strategic career planning. But I deal with the hand I’ve been dealt, which sometimes means prioritizing getting through the day over getting through the next ten years and becoming a badass network mogul.

But you know what? Letting go of the plan has done wonders in making me a calmer, happier person. It may sound cheesy, but I’m learning every day how to value the little things over the big things. I know now that I don’t need millions of dollars or heaps of international praise to be happy or feel successful. What I actually need is good friends, a new book, and a colorful mug of some variety of fruity tea. And most days, that’s enough.

So while the cunning Slytherin in me cringes at the idea of “just enjoying the little things!” I’m learning that success can be defined in different ways based on your circumstances. Taking care of my mind and body can be a huge success if I let myself consider it one. Taking over the world one hit television show at a time? Definitely also success, but maybe a type of success I’m okay with working my way to more slowly.