I simply refuse to give up.
I’ve given up before and I don’t like the feeling. You try to justify why you quit – you just changed your mind really – it wasn’t quitting.
Stopping for reasons beyond your control happens to everyone – myself included and there are reasons to make a life change. I did resign at my last job. Was that quitting or simply moving on to the next stage in my life? We weigh the pros and cons and make judgment calls but when personal commitments we make to ourselves are broken simply because it’s the easier path, well, that is another story. I want to promise myself that I will find my way through whatever I attempt to do be it physical or emotional and I will never, ever, give up.
Easier said than done but it’s something I want to strive for – it’s a way I want to be.
My apples are symbols. They represent my health and my life and hopefully for some they will come to represent a disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis – they most certainly do for me. Every day I struggle to continue this journey – there are many reasons to stop. Uncertainty, insecurity, and simple fatigue. But I feel driven and my drive to create 365 days of apples is to prove something to myself and to stand tall for all AS’ers and show the world who we are! We overcome the most amazing adversity. We live with a disease that exists in obscurity and I will keep working and fighting to raise awareness. That’s my pledge to you!
Until tomorrow.
Jenna
Day 175 was created in mixed media collage. An old Webster’s Dictionary page with inspirational and coincidental words on the same page, a sheet of yellow legal paper with “I will not give up” written repeatedly, and some pastels to make it all pretty!
Go Jenna! Keep on, keeping on! You’ve raised lots of awareness for AS and met many people on your journey! Plus, you’re getting to share all your wonderful art with the world!
Jenna you have a strength about you I continue to admire.
I dont feel good and I feel that AS is taking me more and more everday.I am scared, I read your story and think your apples are amazing. i would like to hang a apple over my bed to give me strenthg.. i got to go dont feel very good today.. thank you
Hi Steve,
I’m so sorry you are dealing with some really bad days right now. I have felt that despair before and it is a scary place. I’d like to give you one of my apples – I’m making them for you and everyone dealing with AS – they are about hanging on to hope. Please let me know which apple you’d like – there are now 175! I’ve given a handful away already but I’d really like you to have the next one.
A big soft hug to you,
Jenna
you go girl! the online AS community has been such a blessing to me!