Here we are in a new year and so it’s time for a new One Word!

Last year I started by just picking my one word for one month at a time. Everything about my life felt very up in the air last January so I wasn’t ready to think ahead further than that. As it turned out, though, a few months into the year the word advocate came forward as my focus. While the word advocate can be applied in many different settings, I meant it in a health-centered way. And it worked out well for me! I made a lot of really important health-centered steps forward last year. I got a POTS diagnosis. I finally got my EDS diagnosis. I got a new family doctor. Those were the big ones, but there were a lot of small successes throughout the year, too.

I will never stop needing to be an advocate for myself. That said, I don’t need it to be my only focus right now. This year, I am going to be one with trees. Yup, that’s right, I’m dying my hair green and wearing a tree shaped car air freshener around my neck.

Not quite. I am going to be one with trees though, because my one word for 2016 is Branch.

And now I am going to make my high school English teachers proud (Hi Miss Triveri!) by walking you through an extended metaphor.

When I got sick I was uprooted. I had been on steady ground, I had been thriving, and then it was as if someone pulled me out of the life I knew and tossed me aside. It didn’t matter how hard I had worked, how many connections I had made or how many goals I had set for myself, all of a sudden I found myself on unfamiliar and unfriendly terrain. I couldn’t thrive there. I lost all of my leaves, on the outside but on the inside, too.

I spent the next couple of years desperately attempting to find my way back to where I had been. I didn’t spend much time trying to figure out this new ground beneath me because why bother putting down roots when I was determined not to be there very long? My eyes remained on my old turf. I enviously watched all those other trees continue to thrive while I, from a distance, continued to shrivel away.

But then something changed. I took a look around me and realized that maybe I could find a way to grow right where I was. In a lot of ways this new terrain was less welcoming, but in some ways it was more forgiving. It wasn’t strictly better or worse, it was just different. It took a lot of hard work, but I was able to establish some roots. That’s what I was doing all last year while advocating for myself, I was putting down roots.

And now? Now I’m ready to branch. Now I’m ready to see how see how far I can reach right from where I am. I don’t know exactly what this will look like yet but I do know that I will be able to weave it into a lot of different areas of my life.

In terms of my health, my diagnoses are my roots. Now that I know what I’m dealing and now that the big things are being treated and managed, my new doctor and I can start to take a look at the little things, the better quality of life things. Now that I have a better understanding of what my limitations are, I’m learning how to be mindful of them instead of doing more harm than good by ignoring them. I’m working with my physiotherapist to improve my strength and stamina in a way that protects my zebra joints.

I also have roots in this blog. I started putting my words out there a little more last year which gave me the chance to connect and form friendships with a lot of really awesome people. I hope to branch out even more in my writing this year.

And perhaps one of the hardest things for me will be to branch out when things are not going well and reach out to other people when I need help. I have roots in the form of incredible people in my life, family and friends who never stop letting me know I am loved, but I tend to hide away when things are tough and wait until I feel in control again before letting them in. I’m going to try to let them see me and support me even when I’m losing leaves.

I’m going to be one with the trees. I’m ready now to figure out how to thrive within this new terrain, not against it. There will still be times when I lose my leaves faster than I can grow new ones and there will still be times when I feel left behind by all the other trees, but I hope to surprise myself by how much I am able to grow.

I’m going to make like a tree and leave now. You’re probably groaning, I’m sorry, but what can I say I’m a sap when it comes to puns. Don’t worry though, I can’t think of any more. I guess I’m stumped.

Okay. NOW I’m done.