Hello friends! I am so excited that you are reading this because this is my first official post on this site! Blogging and putting myself out in the media world so intimately is a little nerve-wracking, but I am optimistic that this blog will be therapeutic for me and, hopefully, for you too. My promise to you, my lovely readers, is to be as real and authentic as possible. So, in the spirit of being real, here is one of my real stories…

 

When I was a senior in high school, my honors English teacher assigned our class a small paper on death, and not just any death, our deaths. She wanted us to talk about how we think we were going to die and what we think our death will be like. I can’t quite remember the purpose of this morbid assignment, but my English teacher was moved by my work and encouraged a shy me to read this piece aloud to the entire class. As I stood there, shaking from nerves, I read the following:

 

 

Death: Me, Myself, and My Life

I can say with certainty in my heart that I am not afraid of death. Death has been the one guarantee in my life since I was born, and I have accepted the fact that I most likely won’t be turned into a vampire and able to live forever. I am more afraid of not living which, to me, is much more different than dying. The process of dying, I hope, will be a slow illness that leads to death. But, as for not living, I just don’t want to be able to say I never got the chance to… for anything. I want my life to be long, adventurous, and fulfilling with all the good stuff along with the bad. When I die, I want to be cremated and have my ashes inside of heart-shaped pendant necklaces just like my grandmother. I felt like she was always with me when I had on that necklace and that gave me strength. At my funeral, I want my family to speak first, and then I want my best friends to speak. Their job will be to turn my funeral into an uplifting celebration of my life. I don’t want anyone to mourn, because if they do it means they believe I’m gone, and I want them to find comfort in the idea of me watching over them. When I die, I don’t want to cease to exist. I want to live and exist in the hearts of everyone I love and care for. The hardest part of dying, to me, is not the process, but it’s the memories of the people who are closest to me. I know that will be my greatest struggle. Letting go and saying goodbye. Feeling while knowing that everything I love about life: my family, school, the air, music, the warmth of the sun, writing stuff like this, my cherished memories, the teachers that taught me everything, my best friends, and that single person that death will due me apart from will all be unlinked from me in the afterlife. And I guess if I didn’t love anybody, dying, wouldn’t hurt so bad. I believe that the moment before I die, I will have a rapid flashback of all the most amazing moments in my life from day one to that very final moment, and I’ll laugh and cry so hard with joy that I was ever so lucky to be alive and to have lived this life with these people and these memories to look back on.

 

Little did 18 year old me realize that later that year, I would be diagnosed with a chronic illness. In October of 2016, I was officially diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. I had manifested this slow illness as my ultimate demise.

 

My name is Janyce-Monique and this is Simply Doin’ the Most. Thank you for reading, and be careful what you manifest!

 

Please read: “Simply an Archive: When a Purple Butterfly Flaps its Wings” for a continuation of this topic.