The Name

Why ‘It‘s part of me; I choose joy’?

It all start­ed with me want­i­ng to get a tat­too. The more I thought about what to get, the more I real­ized I want­ed my first tat­too to be mean­ing­ful. I want­ed it to rep­re­sent my life and for it to inspire me. I also want­ed it to be a sen­tence rather than an image/ picture.

It‘s part of me
Dur­ing my child­hood and teens all I want­ed was to be nor­mal. Every screen­ing, every surgery and scar was a sore reminder that I was dif­fer­ent – surg­eries were the worst though. This part of the sen­tence is all about accep­tance. I accept this con­di­tion as a part of me. I would not be who I am today if my life‘s path had not been influ­enced by this dis­ease. And while yes, it has been hard and the chal­lenges have been dif­fi­cult, hav­ing expe­ri­enced life at this lev­el allowed for a deep­er under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion for being alive.

The semi­colon (;)
My ill­ness does not mean it has to end here. My being does not end here and is not soley defined by my con­di­tion but I acknowl­egde it as part of me. By choos­ing the semi­colon I allow for cer­tain things in the pre­vi­ous chap­ter to end, let­ting go of thoughts, con­cepts of being, def­i­n­i­tions of self that haven‘t worked or served me when seek­ing joy and for a new chap­ter to begin.

I choose joy
And I want this new chap­ter to begin with joy. Despite every­thing, I still have a choice. I can choose to focus on all the bad and the neg­a­tive and let every­thing in my past affect me in the present moment or I can make a con­scious deci­sion to be in the present. To take a moment and be grate­ful for every­thing good in my life, for every­thing I am still able to do and expe­ri­ence and for the life lessons learned in the past. Seek­ing joy in the present moment being the key to break­ing the vicious cycle of spi­ral­ing downwards.

Despite not get­ting the tat­too yet ‚‘It‘s part of me; I choose joy‘ has since become my pil­lar to fall back on when I hit rock bot­tom, because yes, depres­sion is also part of my course with this con­di­tion. In a way it‘s also become my affir­ma­tion when I feel myself slip­ping into a neg­a­tive thought pattern.