It's A Challenge

BICJ is so stinkin' hard to control. 

Well, it's that time once again -- The annual WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge.

WEGO Health is challenging health bloggers to write every day for a month. This isn't an issue for me, as I tend to blab every day unless the sky is falling, or I've fallen, or....well, you get the idea.

The thing that intrigues me about the WEGO challenge is the fact that they offer a daily prompt for each of the 30 days of April. Officially, I don't have to use their prompts. But being of a particularly strongly contrary nature, (y'all are shocked to learn this, I'm certain) that's where this challenge lies for me: to write about an ASSIGNED topic. Last year when I participated, BICJ, my Bratty Inner Child Julia, wrestled control away from me and my keyboard and typed out some very, very silly posts in which I pretty much avoided discussing the assigned topic at all. This time, I will try to prevent a repeat BICJ incident, but can't make any promises. We all know how problematic BICJ can be....

Here's the very first writing prompt:
Imagine that I'm making a time capsule about me and my health that will not be opened for one hundred years. What would I put in it?

Be strong, Julia. Be strong......Oh, no. Here she comes.  

Must......be......doofus.......must.... include flamingos........and mango margaritas........

BACK BICJ! BACK! ::whip crack::

Sigh. The reason BICJ is having such a tantrum over here is because there's so many cliche answers to this question, like: "I would put in a globe because I want to be known as the person that helped to spread awareness of autoimmune disease across the entire planet. Oh, and to symbolize world peace. Definitely world peace."

As someone with Sjogren's syndrome and Lupus and psoriatic arthritis, and autoimmune thyroid disease, the logical answer would be to fill the stupid capsule with pills. Lots and lots and lots and lots of them. And then toss in a case or two of water bottles, and a palate of containers of eye drops, and......

Well. You get the idea. To stuff that time capsule with all those stereotypical types of things that accompany the dryness, fatigue, and pain with our particular flavor of chronic illness.

If someone opened that capsule in one hundred years, I'm sure they would get an idea of the medical and physical aspects of my disease, but is that what I would really want to share? To be remembered for? As the woman who took all those pills and drank all that water and dropped all those eye drops?

No. Not particularly.

If this capsule were to represent me -- just me -- this would be an entirely different discussion. But since this capsule should represent me and MY HEALTH, hm.

Maybe......the capsule should contain.....ah! A log of every blog post for Reasonably Well! Because I suppose that one could view this blog as exactly that: a portrayal of my disease, yes, but also ME with this disease. ME and my family and friends and faith and pets, ME behaving like I always do, (don't say a word, Terese), ME traveling, ME taking pictures, ME eating all sorts of good (and bad) foods, ME living day to day as best I can with autoimmune disease.

Gosh. I actually answered that one pretty sensibly. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

(Yes. Yes, it was.)