Sunrise from my studio window.

Eleven years ago today, I got sick. The emotional effects didn’t hit me till weeks later, but today was the day it started – 11pm at night, suddenly awake and feeling ill. And then that feeling just never going away.

It’s been a long road to the place where I am now.

Last year felt monumental – a whole decade. Christ, I thought, that’s a long time. I felt like I’d spent 10 years picking up the pieces, and with super glue and duct tape, trying to put back together a semblance of a life few thought I could have.

I used to joke that my only goal was to be a self-sufficient cripple. But I wasn’t really joking.

Just as much as I’ve tried to reassemble my life, I’ve been working at reassembling my Self. When you grow up defined by your illness, it’s hard to see outside of that. When it’s all anyone ever talks about, or focuses on, or remembers you for, you start to forget that there is anything else inside of you.

I defined myself by what I couldn’t do. I saw so much of my weakness, and so little of my strength. It’s taken me so long to understand what happened, to move beyond being just the “sick girl” everyone saw me as.

I will never forget the utter hopelessness I felt nearly 6 years ago when I thought that my life was over. I was so sick, I barely left my room, let alone the house. My doctor suggested when I felt a bit better I could take a couple watercolour classes at the community centre.

All I could think is, “Is this what my life has come to? Is this all there is for me?”

So I made a commitment – a commitment to come back to myself, to remember who I was outside the doctors’ offices and hospital rooms, and the endless list of “miracle cures.”

That was in July of 2006. Every day since then, I’ve been taking baby steps back to myself and towards the woman that I want to be.

I decided that I was an artist. I learned (ha! still learning) to embrace the boundaries that my life has, and to grow a brilliant life within them.
A bonsai tree is beautiful and wondrous because of its boundaries, not despite them.
I chose an unconventional path, found ways to support myself by working at home. I became the self-sufficient cripple that I’d always said I’d be.

I climbed out of the hole that I’d fallen into, and now I’m sitting on the rim, looking out at this bright and crazy world which is larger and fuller than I’d ever expected.

When I was 18, a lot of doors had shut in my face. I’ve spent the last 6 years learning to open windows. It hasn’t been easy. So much of me still believes all of the doctors, all of the advice for years to just play small, stay small, keep your head down and don’t set your sights too high because you’ll fail.

I’m teaching myself that these things aren’t true; that there are parts of me that are strong, that I can dream bigger dreams.

This year, I feel like I’ve come full circle. Once upon a time, before I got sick, I dreamed of living in Europe, being self-employed and independent. I gave up on that dream for so long.

This year, I’m working on reclaiming it. I found the art school of my dreams in France last year, and after 6 months there, I knew it was where I was meant to be. This year, I plan on returning for 18 months to continue studying and honing my craft.

It’s the next step in my journey. I’m dreaming bigger than my bank account – right now, I have no idea how I’m going to fund such an experience. If you read my blog, you know that in November, I barely made rent.

But I have to try. I can’t explain it, but this is what I’m meant to be doing. I’m following my heart, my gut, every cell in my body that’s just yearning towards this.

A step at a time, I’m stretching the boundaries of what I used to think was possible. I’m creating the space for my dreams.

Become a patron of the arts

I need to pay my tuition ($2000) by Friday, January 20^th (6 days from now). I have just under $650 of that right now, so I’m a quarter of the way there! (BOOYAH.)

Awesome Way #1 to Join In: Sketches from the Road

This is my totally awesome, exclusive inside look to living life in France (and exploring other bits of Europe) while going to a private art school. It’s kind of like my own reality TV show with a weekly video, love letters to you, photos of everything I see and my progression as an artist.

It’s just $20 for 18 months of food, wine, travel, silliness and visual pleasure.
(And you’re not tied in to 18 months. You can unsubscribe at any time. Although trust me, you won’t want to. I’m too cute. )

Sign up for Sketches from the Road

Awesome Way #2: Buy some art! (Sketches from the Road subscription included!)

Surrounding yourself with beauty is good for your soul. You know that art makes your world better, brighter and more hopeful. Get yourself a painting as a symbol for the dreams you’re dreaming.

Buy yourself something beautiful

If you can’t contribute financially, but still want to help out, I’d love it if you shared this post with your friends and networks and helped to spread the word. Thank you!

Carnations © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2010. Acrylic on canvas, 16"x20", framed.

On Monday, I was featured in an article in our local paper, the Guardian. (You can read it here.)

It talks about my journey from being very ill, to creating a life for myself that I love. It’s a great piece and the reporter, Mary MacKay, really captures my voice and my energy.

I’ve had some wonderful, positive feedback from it, but I’ve had a few people respond with an attitude I haven’t seen in a long, long time – pity.

“Oh you poor, poor girl. You’ve suffered for so long.”

Come again?

I know that this attitude comes from a place of well-meaning. They see my pain and they want it to be fixed. They only see the suffering, and maybe that’s what they can relate to, or maybe they have their own beliefs where you can’t possibly be “disabled” and happy.

I’m about to say something really blasphemous here…

Some days, I forget that I’m sick.

It’s not that I don’t have symptoms – I do. I can still get some pretty hefty pain. My energy levels can be wonky and unpredictable. I may need more naps than the average person.

It’s just that it’s no longer my focus. I don’t give it the time of day anymore. There’s no drama around it. I have an attitude of “Okay, this leg is in some serious pain. What helps? What can I do?” And then I do it. Sometimes that means going to sleep. Sometimes that means hot water bottles.

But I am no longer a victim.

And that’s what bothers me about pity.

Pity assumes that I am helpless. Pity only sees my suffering and magnifies it. Pity doesn’t empower me to create a fabulous life despite and alongside chronic illness.

It just assumes that suffering is the major focus of my day and that’s the end of it.

Pity misses the other 75% of my story.

I may have pain and I may have weakness, but my life is f***ing fabulous. I have done more than most 40 year olds. I live an intentional life.

I do what I love every day. I live exactly where I want. I get to make beautiful things, inspire people, and change the world. I am in a mutually adoring relationship with a guy who can make me laugh till I cry. I am supporting both myself and him (a student) with the money that I make.

Yes, that’s right. The disabled girl supports herself and another person. We split some costs (he contributes where he can) but I just make a lot more money than he does.

And let’s face it – I’m going to France for half a year to study what I love with some of the best artists in the world. I don’t need any pity.

There’s a line in the movie Frida, about the life of artist Frida Kahlo, where she says her only goal is to be a self-sufficient cripple. I first watched it about the time I started turning my life around and I clung to that like Rose clung to her floating door.

I wanted that. I wanted my independence and my freedom back. I’ve fought long and hard to get here, to be a “self-sufficient cripple”. To my own surprise, I’ve  moved past that – I’m a self-sufficient artist now. I’m an Independent Woman, she said tongue-somewhat-in-cheek.

So please, for the love of all things chocolate, don’t pity me.

And don’t pity anyone else either. Look for their strength, not their fragility. Look for where they shine and not where they fall down. Acknowledge their wins instead of focusing only on their losses.

It’s not about disregarding trauma or pretending that it isn’t happening or acting like the world is all rainbows and sunshine.

It is about respecting their wholeness as a human being. It’s about acknowledging their strength and courage in the face of pain, loss, abuse and grief.

It is about celebrating their strength and their willingness to carry on and then encouraging and supporting them in doing that.

Life is about just that - life. Focus on the life that is flowing through their veins, not just the loss. Focus on their power, not their pain. Respect them by seeing them in their entirety, not just in their smallness, but in their largeness. See the whole scope of their spirit and their life force, not just the places where they have shrunk from pain.

My principle at school was the first person to acknowledge me in my entirety when I first got sick. Everyone around me didn’t know how to react – they responded with fear, pity, and grief.

He looked me in the eye and said, “You are one courageous girl.”

In one sentence, he acknowledged both my pain and my strength. He acknowledged both my loss and my will to live.

It’s all any of us try to do. We try to live with the grace, dignity and courage that we all possess.

We’re all fighting the good fight. Don’t degrade it with pity.

I was writing a letter to my email list this morning, telling them about the ways they can help me go to France and how I’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds to the Creative Spirit Art Centre and trying to explain why that’s important to me.

I realized though that none of you knew me 5 years ago. You don’t truly get how f***ing awesome it is for me to be in this place.

And I wanted to share that with you. I want you to understand why this is totally blowing my mind.

Warnings, Caveats, etc.

This video is passionate and emotional. I almost cry at one point. I talk about depression and suicide. I talk about being very ill. If these things are upsetting or triggery for you, please do not watch it.

Also, the illnesses I had (and still have, but much more managed) are Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia – I forget that not everyone knows my medical history. I couldn’t get out of bed because I was sick, and so that was making me depressed, not the other way around, yes?

It’s a long video – over 7 minutes. (I know, I know, it’s only supposed to be max 2 minutes or whatever or no one will watch. So shoot me.)

I needed to say these things – I need you to understand that your dreams can come true. I need you to understand that hope is important and that you shouldn’t give up on yourself.

Why you should never, ever give up. from Sarah Lacy on Vimeo.

I am terrified nervous to share this video. It’s pretty raw. For that reason, comments are off. If you feel moved to share something, please feel free to email me, or DM me on Twitter.

If you’d like to help me get to France, please click the button below:

Me in the studio, with a nude in progress.

I am, occasionally, accused of working too much (usually by well-meaning friends).

It’s probably true. I work a lot. Longer than 8 hour days, by far. Probably closer to 10-12.

But it doesn’t usually feel like work to me. This is what I’d be doing for fun if I had a cubicle job. This is what I would choose to do over almost every other activity. I get really excited about art and business. I always have, ever since I realized that it was totally possible for me to do both those things.

But it goes deeper than that. It’s not just “this thing I do for fun.”

It is my passion, and my life line. More importantly, it’s how I remember who I am.

Most importantly - it’s mine.

Mine and y’all can’t have it.

I started my business because I felt like nothing belonged to me anymore. My body hardly did – it belonged to the doctors who poked and prodded at it. I was completely dependent on my parents for everything. I had no form of independence. My life wasn’t my life anymore. My life belonged to medication, naps, doctors’ offices and attempts to finish school.

But when I started my business, it had nothing to do with those things. My parents tried to give well meaning advice and wanted to help me run it. I think they were baffled by how protective I was of it. I didn’t want their help. I didn’t want anyone’s help. I wanted to make these decisions on my own. I wanted to do things by myself.

My business was my first taste of independence. As I breathed life into it, it breathed life back into me. It gave me something to think about, even if I was too sick to leave my bed for a month. It gave my life purpose, meaning.

It gave me hope.

Now it’s my safe place.

When life gets scary, or hard, or it hurts, I usually retreat to my business. I work harder, longer hours. Partially I do it to forget, but partially I do it to heal. My business reminds me that I have something bigger to work on than the day to day pettiness of life. It gives me perspective, helps me to step back by giving my mind something else to chew on apart from my own fears.

Sometimes I’m writing here, sometimes I’m planning new marketing tactics, sometimes I’m just painting, or photographing my work. Doesn’t matter. There is a calmness in working on my business that I don’t get from a lot of other things. It helps me to center, to remember myself amongst the chaos.

My business is my baby, as much my own creation as any of my paintings. Not everyone understands, but it’s mine.

Strawberries, © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2010. 5"x7" oil on canvas board.

This week has been fantastic as far as studio time goes. I am back on a creative roll!

I just kept finding that flow. I contribute a lot of that to the Dance of Shiva. It just gets my brain all wired up for creativity.

But the most important thing I did to go from 2 hours a week in the studio, to over 16 hours over 4 days?

Prioritized.

Sounds so obvious, so blase right? But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t do it the way those time management gurus tell you to, with their military sense of time and their punishing ways- oh the guilt and shame! So not my thing.

There was no list making, no “This is the most important, and this is second most important and blah blah blah.”

I made a decision. I said to myself, “What is important? What matters the most to me, out of everything that I need to do in a day?”

And of course, the answer came back, Art.

That was that. My day now revolves around my art. The very first thing I do in the morning is my art. It has priority. And when I’m finished with that, everything else can happen. But not before that. No emails will be checked, no dishes will be done, no websites will be designed.

First, I will paint. Everything else can sort itself out.

Not to mention, one of the brilliant side effects of this method is that I’m embarrassingly happy for the rest of the day. I skip, I sing at the top of my lungs, I dance around the house, I smile like an idiot.

I’m doing what I love. What more could I ask for?

And I’m making sure that I’m doing what I need to do to support my creativity – I do 15 minutes of Dance of Shiva (just started level 2!) and then 10-15 minutes of savasana meditation. Bam! I’m in flow. I’m on. My brain yells, Create! and I happily follow its command.

I’m still kind of playing with things. I mean, I didn’t blog all week and I don’t want to completely abandon the ways that I share my art, so I’m going to have to find a balance between my art and my marketing time as well as my jobs. It’s a work in progress. I’ll have to experiment and see what works best for me.

In the meantime, you can enjoy this interview with me over at Magpie Girl, with the wonderful Rachelle Mee-Chapman in her Chronically Creative series.

Also, some of the pieces that I’ve been working on:

Nude work in progress, © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2010. 12"x16" oil on canvas.

Strawberries, work in progress. © Sarah Marie Lacy 2010. 5"x7" oil on canvas board.

Self Portrait work in progress, © Sarah Marie Lacy. 12"x16" oil on canvas.

The White House, © Sarah Marie Lacy. 16"x20" oil on canvas, SOLD.

Recently, I was afraid someone was going to prevent me from participating in something because of my CFS. In the end, the decision was left up to me, but it pushed all of my buttons.

It was like I imploded. Something inside collapsed, and all I could feel was sad, discouraged, listless.

Sometimes I forget that I even have CFS. I’m so used to it, that it no longer really factors into my daily life. It’s just a part of it, like having two legs or blue eyes. I know what I can, and can’t do. Sometimes I need naps, sometimes I’m in a lot of pain. But that’s just part of “being Sarah”.

I forget that to (some) others, I have this mysterious chronic illness. I have a “disability.” And they express their concerns over whether it’s very sensible for me to do A or B, because of this disability. I forget that, because they know nothing else about me, the only thing they can see is my limitations.

But they don’t know me, or what I’ve done, or what I’m capable of. I know those things, but when I’m presented with this other point of view, it’s like I forget all of that.

Suddenly my thoughts start running like this:

“Oh yeah, I am sick. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I can’t handle this situation. I probably shouldn’t even be trying to do X. Who do I think I am anyways? I mean, I’m just the sick girl. I should probably just go home and do some finger painting. It’s not like I’m ever going to amount to anything.”

And then I start to give up hope. I implode. I feel like all they, or anyone can see, is that I’m the sick girl.

It was my self definition for so long. “Hi, I’m Sarah and I have CFS.” You spend long enough traipsing around from hospital to hospital, doctor to doctor, soon it’s all you see because it’s all you ever talk about.

Go to the doctor’s, talk about the CFS.

Go to school, figure out how to deal with the CFS with your teachers.

Go home, figure out how to do homework while dealing with the CFS.

On the weekends, explain to your friends that you can’t go out with them because of the CFS.

Rinse and repeat. For 5 years.

I completely forgot who I was underneath all of that. I lost myself completely.

Then I found art

I still knew that I loved art. Art still made sense. So I decided to pursue it. Slowly, I regained my sense of self as a human being and not a disease. I haven’t looked back since.

It’s been over 3 years since I’ve had to explain my illness to someone else, since I’ve had to negotiate around the CFS. Sure, I talk about it all the time on here, and in my bio – I’m certainly open about it. But it no longer has power over me. I’m the one in control. I’m the one who says, “Yes, I can do this.”

Being in a situation where I wasn’t in control, where I was waiting for someone else’s permission – it threw me off. It made all of those feelings of inadequacy come rushing back. To the other person, it was just a decision.

For me, it was like waiting for a death sentence. It was like waiting for permission to be myself again, and not just “that girl with the weird chronic fatigue illness thingy.”

I so desperately did not want to be her again. I didn’t want to be defined by that. I wanted to be seen clearly, for all of the awesome that I bring to the table, and not the one thing that I have no control over.

Fortunately for me, I have people around to remind me of who I am, but who also understand how hard it is for me when I forget. How discouraged and lost I feel. How afraid I am to go back to that place where I’m a shadow of myself.

But I’ve got so much more power now.

Back then, I was pretty helpless. I didn’t have a lot of control over how my life was run.

Things are different now. I’m the one in control, and no one can take that away from me. Others may decide to define me by what I am and am not physically capable of, but I don’t have to do the same thing. I have a choice. I can choose to let that define me, or I can choose to remember that I have so many other skills, so many other wonderful things to bring to the table.

I can choose to see myself as a burden, or see myself as an asset. I never have to feel like that girl again.

I’ve found myself.

I woke up this morning, early. It happens sometimes when my sleep is drug induced – I was in so much pain yesterday I had to take sleeping pills last night to get any kind of relief.

I pottered around for a few hours, did some web design work and then wandered into the living room to look out the bay window, see if anything interesting was happening.

That’s when I noticed them.

The wild rose bushes had finally bloomed.

They are, unexpectedly, bright Peptobismal pink. They’d looked a deep fuchsia when they were still small, tightly wrapped buds. I had to paint them.

Our garden is a little on the wild side. We can’t even identify some of the plants – and I’m not useless at flower identification. There’s a huge magnolia bush, and 2 wild roses, some bright purple tiger lilies, forget me nots, buttercups, queen anne’s lace and some crazy tall purple things that look kind of like hydrangeas but grow really tall, not in a bush form. Then there’s the straggly purple flower that looks like it’s been shredded – we thought it was a weed, but someone down the street with a very well tended garden has a lovely bed of them, so clearly it’s not. I’m baffled. *

*So Google helped me a little bit – tall hydrangea thingy? I think it’s a fireweed.

But I digress. Basically, the garden is wild and that’s exactly the way I like it. And after yesterday’s misery (lots of pain, lots of foggy, lots of exhaustion), sitting outside in the sun and painting the roses was exactly what I needed.

Wild Roses © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2010. 8"x10" oil on canvas board

This is actually the first plein air painting I’ve ever done. It’s not brilliant, by any means. But it was an experiment and it was relaxing and fun. It was what I needed. It reminded me that even when I feel like I’ve been mowed down by a truck, I’ve still got my art. It heals me, even if I’m reluctant to let it.

I still feel sick now and I think I’m going to go lay down for an hour or two, but you know what? When I was painting I forgot about the hurt, I forgot about the tired, and I forgot about the crap. I just lost myself in the loveliness of a sunny morning, painting roses. Those two hours of hope is all I need to keep me going.

Well, my stomach finally seems to be healing. Between the trifecta of omeprazole, the probiotics and the digestive enzymes, as well as a carefully monitored diet, it should have all the help it needs to start setting itself to rights again.

My body, on the other hand, has been left in a much worse state. I am exhausted. Like sleep for 9 hours and then wake up and still feel tired exhausted. My legs are completely uninterested in supporting my weight for an extended period of time. My brain is still fuzzy and it’s a pretty well known fact that creativity is the first function to suffer when you’re tired.

So although I’m my stomach is better, the ME/CFS ain’t so impressed. The hardest part is, I don’t know when it’s going to get better.

For now, I’m just going to focus on resting as much as possible, doing a little bit of moderate exercise and letting my body do it’s thing. It could take a few days, it could take a few weeks. For all I know, it could take a few months.

I’m still going to try and create as much as possible, but that still won’t be a lot. Of course, abstract doodles with crayons are always an option! And I can catch up on my ever expanding reading list. And have lots of deep conversations with myself.

The only thing that’s frustrating me is the whole school in France thing. My goal was to spend the summer studying and creating 6 pieces to be submitted as my application. All of the pieces need to be done from life, and as of yet, I don’t have too many of those.

If I’m sick for even a month, it’s putting a tight deadline on myself.

However! All is not lost. There are some things that I can do. For example, I can still read and study Old Master works from my bed. Instead of 5 drawings from life per week, maybe I’ll do one or two. And whenever I feel up to painting, I’ll be doing it from life as much as possible. I’ll just have to take it at a slower pace, but it doesn’t mean I have to stop completely.

The hardest part however, is keeping myself motivated. When you’re tired and in pain, sometimes the last thing you want to do is study or create. It’s easier to play a thousand games of solitaire, zone out mindlessly in front of movies and TV and fall down the endless rabbit hole that is the internet.

But I know from past experience that art is what will help me to heal and to deal. Getting lost in a project, if only for half an hour a day, helps to give me a focus outside of my pain. It gives me something else to think about, aside from “Ow.”

So I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll post some of my old master painting analyses on here? Would you be interested in that? I can’t tell if that’s something that’s interesting to others or not. Maybe I’ll do a test one – if you like it, let me know and if you don’t, just ignore it haha. But if you guys like it, maybe I’ll do it once a week and share what I learned from each painting. It’s kind of fun – you really start to appreciate the genius of these artists when you really start to pay attention to how they constructed a painting.

For now, I’m going to go lie down. Maybe later I’ll feel capable of doing another productive thing.

Ughhhh, hungryyyy.

Welcome to Day 5 of Total Bed Rest. I’ve been living on the BRAT* diet for the past 5 days, excepting an unfortunate foray into the world of salad.

*BRAT – bananas, rice, apples and toast. Mostly toast.

I’m bored senseless. I’m an absolutely awful patient. Unless I’m so sick that all I can do is sleep, I just keep trying to do stuff which only makes me worse. Poor Jesse was about ready to tear his hair out on Tuesday. He was threatening to tie me to cement blocks so I’d actually sit still long enough to heal. Then when I did do too much, I very nearly triggered the bleeding (trust me, when horrible stabbing pains start in your stomach, it’s time to lie down).

I’m also a very paranoid patient. I don’t whine, or cry. I just get really, really needy. I need to be reassured almost every 30 seconds that I’m still loved and it’s okay that I’m sick and stuck in bed and can’t do anything. I don’t do well being dependent on someone else for things like oh…practically everything. Tea. Food. Whatever.

What does all of this mean at the end of the day? I’m a real bear when I’m sick. Especially for the people closest to me (uhhh, sorry Jesse.)

I think I’m pretty much out of the danger zone at this point. I think a few more days of bed rest and eating the world’s most boring food (the delicious homemade apple sauce from my friend Lauren aside) and I should be able to get back to normal – or at least be able to get back to art. My creativity is the first thing to suffer when I get sick and the last thing I want to be dealing with is toxic paints.

In other, far more depressing news, despite playing countless games of solitaire this week – I still suck.

But I definitely need to make some changes – some to my diet (although it’s not like I eat terribly) but I think most of the changes will be lifestyle. I need to reduce my stress levels, although that’s considerably easier said than done. Everyone stresses – some of us more than others, I’ll admit, but everyone gets stressed out. It’s human nature. I just need to reduce the amount that I’m stressing out.

So things like mandatory daily meditation will be introduced. Yoga, at least 4 times a week. Walks. Clocking no more than 8 hours a day. Going to bed reasonably early. Taking regular breaks. Breathing. Like all the time.

And mostly remembering that everything is going to be okay. And that I’m okay. And that we’re all okay. The sky is not going to fall, it’s okay for me to not have my life “together”. Life is a journey and all that jazz.

It’s funny, but I don’t even consider myself a highly stressed out person. I mean, it’s not like I’m some highly strung business woman who screams at you if her coffee is 2 seconds late. On the other hand, clearly my body disagrees.

Yet I do  feel the pressure a lot – you know, the pressure to be an “adult”.  Although the more adults I meet, the more I think the whole thing is a facade constructed by parents to make their kids feel guilty. I suppose that technically I’m an adult as well but I don’t feel like one. Not sure if I ever will.

Anyways the point of this ramble is – I’m alive, I’m healing, and with any luck, I’ll never have to deal with this problem again.

Dear Stomach,

We don’t seem to be getting along right now, do we? You’ve been kinda hurt-ey since February, and trying to get my attention with some small aches and pains and I wasn’t a very good owner, and I ignored you. I kept putting off going back to the doctor and getting more of the nice stomach pills he gave us.

I’m so sorry, Stomach. I shouldn’t have treated you so badly. I should have listened when you asked for help. But I was scared because I didn’t want to admit that you might start internally bleeding again. I’m sorry, Stomach.

And now you’re hurt and upset and causing me more pain than usual. You’re rumbling and making weird noises and just generally feeling rather uncomfortable.

Stomach, dearest, you’re scaring me. Because I sincerely don’t want a repeat of October. I would be so happy if you could stop hurting. And maybe not internally bleed. Because it’s scary when you do that and very, very painful.

I took you to the doctor’s today, and we got some more drugs, and I even went to the health food store and bought you some acidopholus.

I’m going to try and be nice to you from now on and notice when you’re hurting and need some help.

All I ask in return is that we avoid the whole spontaneous bleeding from our insides thing. And maybe start to feel better. Because if you’re making me super sick, I can’t take care of your properly.

Please feel better soon.

Love,
Sarah xoxo

p.s. Help me send good vibes to my stomach by leaving some love for it in the comments! I would really appreciate that.