An Unlikely Heroine

I have some rather good news. Another of my stories is to be published in the next Heroines anthology, due out in September.

This is both wonderful and sad, for I wrote the story nearly three years ago, back when I was still able to write. 

I am unable to write stories now.

I began writing creatively at the beginning of 2014, starting tentatively, not knowing how, yet gradually being drawn more and more to create characters and settings, and to see where they led me. I experienced, from 2013 to 2017, a time of wonder. I had increased (though still limited) energy, and this is what made it possible, yet it was the newness of what I was learning and experiencing that drove me onwards. It was a time of profusion. The possibilities of my life expanded, my imagination flourished, and I felt like I had found not only what I wanted to do, but something that I could do, despite having CFS.

Perhaps I was naive. Maybe things went to my head. I forgot that nothing is certain when chronic illness is involved. 

So, there are mixed feelings about the impending publication of my story. There is a sense of hope. If my story can be selected (again!) from more than 100 submissions, then surely that means I can write well, given the right circumstances. But there is also a sense of defeat, for I am not in control of the circumstances. I do not know when I will be able to write again.

I’m trapped in a great tangle of possibilities and limitations, trying to make sense of it all, and not having much success at present.

It’s hard work being the heroine of my own life, but I must trust that I will find a way to save myself, to keep on living as best I can, whether I can write or not.