Sweet n Salty

An Ode to Mallory Smith

"I have a strong urge to do something more... to write something that will change people, that will have an infectious influence on the way they think and feel that will last. I want to create a piece so moving that people are in disbelief. And I want it to be like handing people a pair of glasses, giving them a way of seeing something they didn't even realize they weren't seeing."

More great words from Mallory Smith, out of Salt In My Soul. This book is doing that very thing - making me see my illness in a different light, and seeing my life in a different way. I so very much wish I could have met Mallory, we would have been really good friends. We both like a lot of the same things. And, of course, we both have Cystic Fibrosis. I'm so sad her earth walk was cut short at just 25. That's only a year less than I've been here. And I'm lucky. I wasn't supposed to make it this long. When I was diagnosed, at 9 months old, the doctors told my parents that I wouldn't live past 18.

But here I am, 8 years later, and I don't really know if I'm staying or if I'm going quite yet. Back in December, I was certain that that was probably going to be my last Christmas. I didn't think I was going to see a new year past 2019. But things feel different now. I feel like I could stay possibly another 10 years if I really wanted to. And I want to. My spirit wants to, but I don't know if this body can carry me that far. It's like, all at once, all my organs start giving out, and I'm in so much pain that I don't know how I can walk this earth another year. But then something changes, and my body starts to recoup. It's strange. I know that I'm dying. But the when is so up in the air at this point. It could be tomorrow, it could be 15 years from tomorrow.

Mallory was reading a book called How to Be Sick. It's a "Buddhist-inspired guide to living well with a chronic illness and being happy". But she said she was so inspired and related to everything the author was saying so well that she just wanted to underline and highlight all these parts of the book. And that's exactly how I feel when I'm reading Salt In My Soul. It's kind of funny how things cycle back like that. I wonder how she would feel, knowing that her writings, and her book invoke the same feelings in me. Her words stir something in me, and inspire me. Hell, it's why I started really writing all of this! I dabbled around with 'telling my story' before, in an autobiographical way. But maybe the better way to go about it, for me, and for the reader (you), is to keep writing in this journal-like format. It seems more personal (and more fun, honestly), than just droning on in an autobiography. But at the same time, I have so much stuff to cover to get people all caught up! I'm slowly trying to back-track when it feels right, and when it fits in best.