My Thoughts on "I am: Celine Dion".....

 Dear Fishes-

       *Spoiler Alert* If you haven't seen the documentary and you want to watch it without spoilers, please stop reading for your sake as well as my own. I don't want to deal with angry people. 

      Recently, I watched the documentary of Celine Dion's titled "I am: Celine Dion." It was good but it was tough to watch because it was so raw and you end up wanting her to succeed, even though things don't look great for her because of the unfortunate illness that she's dealing with--"Stiff Person Syndrome." I've never seen Celine Dion in concert (I've always wanted to, but never had the chance), but I've grown up listening to her pivotal albums all throughout my life. After seeing the documentary of her struggles with Stiff Person Syndrome, I downloaded a lot of her songs that I had forgotten about from yesteryears, before when I was a teenager and she was the biggest name of all of the singers at that point. Celine Dion is up there with other wordly, regarding how she can sing and at what level she can sing at. Her vocal range is one of the most impressive I've ever heard in my life--and I've listened to a lot of music in my day. Whitney Houston and Celine Dion were my idols growing up in my teenage years when I started to care about music. It was their music that got me through my teenage years. I also loved that Celine Dion catered to different genres of music lovers. 

      While watching the documentary, it was made abundantly clear that what she's experiencing is real, raw, awful, gut-wrenching, sad, and takes every ounce of her courage to keep on fighting. You can tell from the documentary that her "new life" with a serious illness is one of pain and trying to find her identity outside of being a world-famous singer. I struggled, nay, I still struggle with how different I was from years ago before I was diagnosed with M.S.. It's like a part of you dies and you have to learn how to live with that, even though you're still the same person, but that part of your soul dies off like a gangrenous appendage that you still try to hold onto because it was how you saw yourself and to not see yourself from that aspect hurts like hell. It's part of why I usually show people a picture of what I used to look like when I didn't have M.S. and they usually ask "What happened?! How/why did you change so much?!" I usually respond with, "M.S. happened, that's why I look the way that I do now, which is a sad state of affairs compared to how I once looked/groomed myself/took care of myself. I don't care as much now as to how I look because it seems so frivolous to try to keep up with how I used to be. 

        Watching Celine Dion's documentary evoked similar feelings in me that she was relaying. We may not share the same disease, but we both have neurological illnesses that have shattered what we used to be. I was nineteen when I started having M.S. problems and wasn't able to invent myself yet, like most people do when they're that age. I was a junior in college and I had to stop college for a few years because of how bad the M.S. got. I eventually went back to college, graduated, and then felt a hole in my soul that I wanted to fill with happiness, but couldn't. I've looked for years for that. It's a hard cup to fill when you don't feel "whole"...It's hard to explain. I thought after getting three degrees that things would be better, but it's left me with feeling that the more I know, the less that I actually know--if you can imagine that. Being informed of information that you have no idea about makes you feel small and insignificant. But I still press forward with trying to finish up with getting my third bachelor's degree and second associates degree. I'll have five degrees when all is said and done. I'm not sure I want to pursue a Master's, but who knows, maybe I'll do it for kicks and giggles. Only time will tell. I do love learning. 

        I loved how real Celine Dion was in the documentary and how she allowed her audience to experience one of her crises moments that accompanies Stiff Person Syndrome, so that others could gain awareness of her condition and why she's not performing right now. I know at the beginning of getting diagnosed with M.S. I was hopeful about treatments and thought about how new treatments were coming down the pipeline--it's been twenty-four years later and no solid improvements have been made to M.S....it's just recycling of old meds that have been on the market for decades that are slightly tweaked--according to one neurologist that I saw.  

         I think Celine Dion is hopeful, which is good. Having hope makes up for a lot of things. "Hope Springs Eternal" or so it is said. Do I have hope, with a chronic illness? Sometimes. Sometimes not and that hurts because reality hits even harder at those times that things are what they are regardless of how hard you try to change it. It is what it is. Grappling that reality is even more intense than the one where you felt like you had control. Having no control over your body or what it does, is something a bit like experiencing a personal hell that never goes away. Try that on for a day and see how crazy that makes you feel. 

       My heart goes out to Celine Dion and all that she is experiencing first hand and also all the pain that's she's in. I can only imagine. I can relate on having a terrible chronic illness, but I don't know what it's like to have a world famous career that then is obliterated by a new illness. I just know what it's like from my perspective and it sucks. I hope she never loses hope and that she continues to fight each day with new vigor. I'm very proud of her for allowing a documentary to be made on her behalf and allowing fans to see how her life has changed drastically. Her documentary has made me very reflective on my own illness and what it's like to go forward with faith with an illness that affects everything. 

       I'm in the process of writing a book about my experiences with M.S.--a more in depth one that includes snapshots of my childhood and how I've adapted to survive this sense of reality. I know you're probably thinking, "Well you've been pretty in depth as it is." True, but there's much more to write about that hasn't been written. It reminds me of learning about John Smith and how it took him over fifteen years to write about his travels in the new world (America). You have to percolate with said feelings and experiences, while figuring out how to give it a voice...

  See ya in the sea anemone, 

B.