Life I Imagined

This is not the life I dreamed.

Not the path I would have chosen.

Not the body I would have built,

If I had been given a say.

Some mornings, I wake up and wish—

For ease, for certainty, for a miracle.

For the kind of life that doesn't hurt

Before my feet even touch the floor.

But I have learned this:

Pain does not erase purpose.

Struggle does not cancel joy.

And a broken body does not mean a broken soul.

I have seen kindness bloom in the cracks,

Compassion grow where bitterness could have been.

I have found laughter in the mess,

And light in the places I never thought to look.

And sometimes—just for a moment—

I forget all it has taken from me.

I think about which teacher shirt to wear,

Imagine the voices of my students,

Feel like me again, before my body gave out.

Then reality returns—

The pain, the loss, the weight of it all.

The joints that slip, the ribs that shift,

The dreams rewritten without my consent.

But even on the hardest days, I hold on.

Because I am still here.

Because I am still needed.

Because the world has not seen the last of me.

I am not just surviving—

I am becoming.

Becoming who I was meant to be.

Watch out, world—you'll see. (being underestimated is half the fun)