Between the Lines
Crohn’s Didn’t Just Take My Health. It Took My Teenage Years.
People say all the time, “Enjoy being young. These are the best years of your life.”
Every time I hear that, I can’t help but wonder…
What if you never really got to have those years?
When I was 13, Crohn’s disease took over my life.
It didn’t ask permission.
It didn’t care that I was just a kid.
One day I was worrying about normal teenage stuff, and the next I was worrying about whether eating a few bites of food was gonna leave me doubled over in pain.
Life changed that fast.
People who haven’t lived with a chronic illness usually think about the physical pain first.
And don’t get me wrong, the pain was real.
There were days I’d barely eat because I already knew what was coming.
There were nights I’d sit in the bathtub until the water got cold because it was the only place my body seemed to settle down.
But if I’m being honest…
The hardest part wasn’t always the pain.
The hardest part was everything I missed while the rest of the world kept moving.
I missed school.
Not because I didn’t want to be there.
Not because I didn’t care.
I missed school because my body wouldn’t cooperate.
Eventually, I missed so many days that I had to drop out.
That wasn’t the plan.
I wanted the football games.
I wanted the friendships.
I wanted to walk the halls complaining about homework like everybody else.
I wanted to be a normal teenager.
Instead, I became a patient.
While other kids were making memories, I was learning medical terms.
While they were figuring out who they wanted to be, I was just trying to make it through another day.
It’s funny how illness can steal things you don’t even realize you’re losing until years later.
Even now, there are moments when my friends talk about things they experienced as teenagers, and I realize…
I wasn’t there.
I don’t have that story.
I don’t have that memory.
Those years shaped them.
Mine were spent surviving.
Get Kadesha Writes’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
For a long time, I felt like I was behind.
Like everybody else had gotten some handbook on growing up that somehow skipped over me.
There were things I had to learn much later in life because I simply didn’t get the chance to learn them back then.
And every now and then, I still think about the girl I might’ve been if Crohn’s hadn’t entered my life at 13.
Not because I wish my life was different.
But because it’s okay to grieve the things you never got to experience.
I’ve learned something over the years.
Healing isn’t just about your body.
Sometimes it’s about making peace with the life you didn’t get to live.
That doesn’t mean you stay stuck there.
It just means you stop pretending that loss doesn’t matter.
Because it does.
The good news is this…
Life didn’t stop giving me moments worth living.
They just came later.
I’ve laughed.
I’ve loved.
I’ve become a mother.
I’ve built a life.
I’ve survived more than I ever thought I could.
No, I didn’t get the teenage years I imagined.
But I’m learning that life has a funny way of giving us joy in seasons we never expected.
Between the Lines…
Sometimes we spend so much time grieving the chapters we lost that we forget to notice the beautiful ones we’re still writing.
If you’re carrying sadness over something life took from you, I hope you know this…
It’s never too late to create memories that make you smile.
Have you ever felt like life moved on without you for a while? What helped you find your way back? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.
One Last Thought…
You can’t get lost time back.
I’ve made peace with that.
But I’ve also learned that life doesn’t stop offering beautiful moments just because you missed a few chapters. Sometimes healing isn’t about reclaiming what was taken. Sometimes it’s about embracing what’s still waiting for you.
Maybe that’s the real lesson.
We can’t rewrite yesterday, but we can keep writing today.
Until next time…
Keep looking between the lines.
Kadesha H.
