Wonder and amazement and fear and hurt flooded my heart when I saw her cap and gown picture in my feed. My peers are all enjoying their last moments before going off the college or whatever they’re doing next. They’re working jobs and taking trips and celebrating entering adulthood.

I’m not.

“Any fun plans for the summer?” everyone asks.

“My goal is to just finish school,” I reply.

Life after graduation is so different for a chronically ill person —- in so many ways. First of all, most of us aren’t finishing when we’re supposed to. It’s a downright miracle that I’m only going to be finishing a few months late . . . many spoonies are forced to suspend school for years, we’re too busy fighting to get out of bed and eat food and stay clean.

For three years I had to postpone all math and science related school because my brain simply couldn’t do it. Brain fog was too strong for me to comprehend it. Only lately, as my health and mental functioning have improved have I been able to get back to it. And for the first time ever, math doesn’t physically hurt my brain. Seriously. In three months, focusing solely on it, I was able to complete Algebra 1. Still with some brain-damage related difficulty, but I did it.

Today, I start Geometry.

But as finishing high school draws near, I don’t know what to do next. College? Getting a job? Moving out? Despite finishing school, in a lot of ways, I’m still not able to take care of myself completely. I still have doctor appointments every week. I still can’t drive because of the brain damage. I still have a lot of issues.

I have so many dreams that I’m anxious to pursue. But without a miracle, I can’t realistically pursue them. Not yet, at least.

Do you relate? You’re in your twenties and you’re still just trying to finish high school. Or maybe you had to drop out. You tried college but found you couldn’t even keep up with the courses for even three weeks. You want to move to Indonesia or who-knows-where, but you can’t take care of yourself. You want to travel, but you can’t maintain a job and earn enough money. You want to get married and have kids, but is that even possible with a chronic illness?

Milestones are hard, and more than birthdays and diagnosis anniversaries, graduation wreaks of dreams lost and broken. I could tell you that God’s plan for our lives is more beautiful than we can imagine, even with chronic illness. I could tell you that your dreams might not be as lost and broken as they seem right now.

But you know that already, don’t you? What you’d really like are some answers. Ten steps you can follow for the next five years. Yeah, me too. I keep asking, but no one will give me an answer. And I don’t have one for you either.

Sorry.

But while you’re seeking God about that, maybe you just need someone in the same boat to come alongside and say it’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to be sad and wrestle with graduation and the future and your illness.