I’m feeling better today, and I’m thankful for it. I really do hope things continue to get better with this medication. At the same time, I’ve been taking notes about how it is making me feel because I want to give my doctor an honest, accurate picture of what I’ve been experiencing. I have an appointment with her next month, and I plan on telling her everything that has been going on, both the good and the bad, and how I’ve been feeling since starting this medicine.

I really hope this medication works for me and that I don’t continue to get worse. Yesterday was honestly awful. I felt like I wasn’t even myself. It was almost like I had become a completely different person. I felt like the real me was buried somewhere underneath all of the irritation, frustration, and overwhelming emotions. It was such an unsettling feeling because I knew that wasn’t how I normally feel or how I want to feel. I don’t want to lose myself in all of that frustration and irritability. I’m hoping yesterday was just a particularly bad day and that things will continue to improve.

I also called the health insurance company this morning. My insurance is fine, but Alexis’s insurance is currently on hold and still pending. I called to find out what was going on because I wasn’t really sure why there was a problem. Apparently, they put Alexis into a different category or something along those lines. The representative explained it to me, and I understood what she was saying while we were talking, but I honestly can’t remember exactly how to explain it now.

The good thing is that Alexis’s case was brought to a supervisor, so hopefully someone will be able to get it straightened out. I was told to check back on Friday afternoon to see if the issue has been resolved. I’m really hoping it will be taken care of by then because I really don’t want to have to call them again. The people I’ve talked to have been nice and helpful, so it’s not that they are rude or difficult. I just get so much anxiety when I have to talk on the phone, especially when I’m calling about something important, and I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. Making those calls can be really stressful for me.

I also had to call the FAFSA people yesterday. Karissa’s school needed an official statement showing her loan discharge information. I’m not even sure if I’m remembering the exact name of the document correctly, but thankfully I was able to get through to the right people and get the information Karissa needed. It’s crazy too because she has a loan discharge because of her disability but I always forget she has a disability because I live with her and I have the same problem, just less severely. I forget that she can get help because of her disability. And it was Fafsa who caught it that she has a disability. So that is a good thing that they caught it.

Once we had the document, we printed it out, and Karissa mailed it to the school yesterday. I suppose we probably could have emailed it, which would have been much faster and easier, but for whatever reason, we decided to just snail mail it. At least it’s done now, and hopefully the school will receive it without any problems.

So, there has been quite a bit going on these past few days. Between trying to figure out how I’m feeling on this medication, dealing with the insurance situation, and helping Karissa get the paperwork she needed for school, it has been a lot to keep up with. I’m just glad that today feels a little better than yesterday. I’m trying to take things one day at a time, pay attention to how I’m feeling, and keep track of what is happening so I can talk to my doctor about it next month.

I was talking to a friend recently, and our conversation turned to my online journal… this little corner of the internet where I’ve been writing about my life. She asked me something I’ve thought about before: Do I ever feel weird knowing that my journal is publicly available for anyone to read?

It’s a fair question. I’ve given it some thought.

I used to keep my journal private. I had a LiveJournal account, which I still have, although I don’t write there anymore. When I eventually decided that I wanted my journal to be public, I made a deliberate choice to put it on my own website. I didn’t, and still don’t, want my LiveJournal to be public. There’s something about having that older journal remain a private little archive of my life that feels right to me.

But then the obvious question is: If I care about privacy, why make a journal public at all? I mean, my social media accounts are all private.

The truth is, it’s not quite as public as it sounds.

Unless you know the name of my website, you’re probably not going to stumble across it. You can Google my name, and my journal doesn’t exactly appear at the top of the results, or anywhere particularly useful, really. I know because, of course, I’ve Googled my own name. What? Hasn’t everyone done that at least once? You have to see what the internet thinks it knows about you.

So, yes, technically anyone can read my journal. But realistically, most people aren’t going to find it unless they already know where to look.

In that sense, it’s public mostly for my friends. It’s a way for people who know me to keep up with what I’m doing, what I’m thinking about, and what’s happening in my life. And if some random person happens to find it and wants to read it, well, that’s kind of cool too.

More importantly, I don’t write anything in my journal that I wouldn’t be willing to have out in the world. That doesn’t mean I tell every detail of my life or that I have no boundaries. There are absolutely things I keep private. But before I hit publish, I try to be comfortable with the idea that someone besides the person I had in mind might read it.

Because ultimately, I’m choosing to show you my life.

There is so much pressure, especially online, to present a polished version of ourselves. We show the vacations, the accomplishments, the good meals, the funny stories, the moments when everything seems to be going right. It’s easy to look at other people’s lives and assume they’re happier, more successful, more organized, or simply doing better than we are.

That’s not the kind of journal I want to keep. But, sometimes I do feel that pressure to keep my journal happy and entertaining.

Life isn’t just the good stuff. Sometimes things are frustrating. Sometimes I’m uncertain. Sometimes I’m sad or annoyed or completely overwhelmed. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. And sometimes things are wonderful, and I want to celebrate them.

I want my journal to reflect all of that.

I think there’s something comforting about seeing the reality of another person’s life rather than just the highlight reel. Maybe someone reading one of my entries will recognize something in it and think, Okay, so I’m not the only person who feels this way. If my writing can occasionally make someone feel a little less alone, then making it public is worth it.

That said, I’d be lying if I said I never worry about it.

Every once in a while, I wonder if something I’ve written might come back to bite me. The internet has a very long memory, and once something is public, you can never be completely certain where it might end up or who might eventually read it. Something that seems harmless today could look very different five or ten years from now. That thought does cross my mind.

But I also don’t want fear of some hypothetical future consequence to make me dishonest about the present. Part of the reason I keep writing is that I want to be honest about how things actually are; not necessarily perfectly honest about every private detail, but honest about my experiences, my thoughts, and how I’m feeling.

There’s a difference between having privacy and pretending everything is perfect.

My journal is public because I want it to be. It’s not an accidental oversharing of everything about my life, and it’s not an invitation for everyone to know everything about me. It’s simply a part of my life that I’ve chosen to open up and share.

So, no, I don’t really feel weird about having a public journal. At least not most of the time.

I know it’s out there. I know someone could find it. I know that someday something I wrote might make me cringe. But for now, I like having this record of my life… a place where I can be honest about the good, the bad, the mundane, and everything in between.

If you happen to find it and read it, welcome.