Spring Break
Discovering meaning in my life
Sara Gwin
Issue date: 1/16/09 Section: Forum
For the last couple years at OSU, my terms have consisted of late nights with little sleep fueled by increasingly insane amounts of caffeine to finish endless amounts of term papers, various work and whatever amount of activism I could squeeze in. Instead, I spent most of last term bed ridden without the strength to stand.
I hit bottom. The chronic pain that had been getting increasingly worse since high school was becoming unbearable. Every part of my body had some degree of a dull, aching pain, or a sharp, stabbing or burning pain that no amount of medication could ever mask. Sometimes my body shook uncontrollably, as if my nervous system was in a state of shock while my ever-weakening muscles gave out in the most mundane of activities. Even writing became a difficult task as the arthritic nature of this disease contorted my hand, making typing difficult.
Truth be told, I was scared to death. It was a frightening feeling to know that my most recent diagnosis was wrong, and have no idea what was happening to me. It was hard to fathom that just a few short years ago I was a college-bound athlete who trained for more than six hours a day.
At the time, playing sports was my greatest love, and the chance to play in college was my ultimate dream. When this disease robbed me of that dream, I felt broken when I got to college. I had to face the fact that I was merely going through the motions of life, using sports as an obsession to escape the shame of having radical beliefs that stood out from my conservative Christian family and community. But finding the women's studies department and the feminist community here, I faced this struggle and soon began to feel more alive than I ever have before. I found a passion that profoundly changed the direction of my life and gave me newfound excitement and hope. But soon enough, my weakening body was getting in the way of my dreams again. It was an odd to feel my mind and soul as strong and alive as ever while my body was dying.
I hit bottom. The chronic pain that had been getting increasingly worse since high school was becoming unbearable. Every part of my body had some degree of a dull, aching pain, or a sharp, stabbing or burning pain that no amount of medication could ever mask. Sometimes my body shook uncontrollably, as if my nervous system was in a state of shock while my ever-weakening muscles gave out in the most mundane of activities. Even writing became a difficult task as the arthritic nature of this disease contorted my hand, making typing difficult.
Truth be told, I was scared to death. It was a frightening feeling to know that my most recent diagnosis was wrong, and have no idea what was happening to me. It was hard to fathom that just a few short years ago I was a college-bound athlete who trained for more than six hours a day.
At the time, playing sports was my greatest love, and the chance to play in college was my ultimate dream. When this disease robbed me of that dream, I felt broken when I got to college. I had to face the fact that I was merely going through the motions of life, using sports as an obsession to escape the shame of having radical beliefs that stood out from my conservative Christian family and community. But finding the women's studies department and the feminist community here, I faced this struggle and soon began to feel more alive than I ever have before. I found a passion that profoundly changed the direction of my life and gave me newfound excitement and hope. But soon enough, my weakening body was getting in the way of my dreams again. It was an odd to feel my mind and soul as strong and alive as ever while my body was dying.
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