Hi, perfectly imperfect friend!

*hands cup of coffee over with a smile on her face

I am so glad that you decided to join me on my perfectly imperfect journey—a midlife awakening, one could say—as I explore both the old and the new me...

One story.

One note.

One popcorn thought at a time.

Along the way, you might stumble across...

🍎 Miss Apple’s Classroom

Stories from my years as an elementary school teacher—and the children who unknowingly became some of my greatest teachers through laughter, chaos, and love.

✏️ Human Resources

The chapter that began after I broke my chalk, tossed it aside, and discovered there was life beyond the classroom.

💪 Mid Life Weakening

If you know...

...you know.

❤️ Relationships

The perfectly imperfect people who have shaped my life—girlfriends, family, mentors, strangers, and everyone in between.

🌼 Neurospicy Adventures & Advocacy

Living with ADHD, narcolepsy, dysautonomia, and a collection of other diagnoses. Around here, we believe life can be perfectly imperfect...and still make a pretty good story.

🎨 Creativity & Curiosity

Following ideas wherever they lead—from reading, writing, photography (I learned on a film camera!), painting, charcuterie boards, gardening, and the random rabbit holes my neurospicy brain decides we simply must explore.

🫧 Let’s Develop Harold

Should I write a children’s book? My mother was a writer, and my dad was a cartoonist...those talents are hereditary, right? I am overly confident they are.

Come along as Harold the Bubble and I try to figure that out together.

💜 Healing

The ongoing journey of becoming comfortable in my own skin.

(Should Perfectly Imperfect be my next tattoo?)

🌱 Reflection & Growth

Because if we never stop reflecting...

...do we ever really evolve?

More than anything, I hope this space becomes a place where friends gather and teach one another about life…the perfect and the imperfect.

My journals sat locked away for years, read by no one.

Then...I found my voice. I lost (most) of my fear.

Now I’m learning that the most beautiful part of writing isn’t simply being heard—it’s connecting with people who hear a piece of themselves in the words, too.

I’m grateful you’re here,

~AlexLynnTx (Unepologenticperfectlyimperfect

If you’d like to learn a little more about me and why I started writing,

About AlexLynnTx...

The owner of the garden locked the shed door.

She left.

She no longer saw the beauty in the flowers.

The daisies wilted in the rotten soil that remained.

__________________________________________________

The gardener’s daughter unlocked the shed.

It was time for the flowers to flourish again.

In her quiet time

while nurturing the flowers

she released the hurt

that was rotting HER soil…

Or perhaps her soul.

She saw the beauty in the flowers again.

She saw the beauty in her life again.

__________________________________________________

Today,

A vase of glorious daisies sits on her garden bench

soaking in the summer sun.

They are healthy.

They are flourishing.

They are no longer sitting in the rotten soil of the past.

Apparently, all that was missing was healthy soil.

__________________________________________________

“What party trick are you known for?”

Me?
I was the bendy girl.

Well, see, I am hypermobile.
Like Gumby — yes, I am showing my age.

I bend in different directions.
Sometimes not on purpose.

Until I was 32, I was known as the flexible chick that could do cool party tricks.
I admittedly was a show off.

Then…

I saw a new doctor.
A specialist.
Located several states away.

“You have Dysautonomia — a nervous system disorder.”

She explained that Dysautonomia was like the wiring system that runs all the parts of a vehicle.
If one part of the wiring system in your car doesn’t work properly, your car won’t run.

Your body has a wiring system too.
The ANS (Autonomic Nervous System).

“Yours is broken.
Therefore, your body doesn’t run properly.”

Then POTS and EDS joined the party.
Uninvited.

“Specifically, you have POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) and EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome — specifically hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, also known as hEDS).”

“Your fainting and bending joints?
They are not cool party tricks.”

Apparently, my autonomic nervous system had decided that basic human functions, like proper blood distribution throughout my body, were optional.

My first thought was:

“No shit! I have spent the last six years trying to convince doctors something was wrong with me.”

This was the first time I learned the importance of patient advocacy.

The joy I initially felt when diagnosed quickly evaporated.

Then reality hit me like a wrecking ball.

It crashed directly into my dreams.

I had to quit my job as an educator.
Fainting for unidentifiable reasons, in front of children, is kinda frowned upon.

I couldn’t be the newlywed I wanted to be.
Having the energy to go out with my new husband and friends, on a Friday night, no longer existed.

Becoming the athlete I wanted to be?
Well, my body had different plans.

Those muscles in your calves?
Let’s rip them in half — at the same time — so you can never run again.

I was different now.
So was my life.
By no choice of my own.

The worst part — a diagnosis didn’t mean doctors knew anything about my conditions.

Not in the “we don’t specialize in that” kind of way.

More like:

“Huh…what is that?”
“Can you phonetically spell that word so I can do some research?”
“You need to go to a learning hospital.”

This was the second time I realized the importance of self advocacy.

Since the doctors knew nothing about my conditions, I became a fully self-trained patient advocate.

(No medical degree required.)

It was time for the research.

If it was written about Dysautonomia, POTS or EDS, I read it.

I won’t bore you with the depths of my research, but I will share why zebras — a unique animal with distinctive stripes — became a symbol of unity and resilience within the rare disease community.

The zebra wasn’t a random choice.

It was a private message to people with invisible conditions:

“You weren’t imagining it.
You were just harder to diagnose.
You have support.”

See, according to a 1940s medical journal, doctors were taught:

“When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras.”

They were trained to rule out the obvious first.
Find the horse before the zebra.

And honestly?
I understood that philosophy.

Until I became a zebra.

(No disrespect to horses, of course.)

See, zebras are unique.
No two have the same stripes; however, they are all zebras.

Rare conditions like Dysautonomia, POTS and EDS are highly individualized.
No two people present with the exact same symptoms.
Yet they are all living with the same conditions.

Rare illnesses are just like zebra stripes.

This creates challenges for doctors.

It is important to note that all of these conditions used to be considered rare. There are some theories that they were never truly rare — just underdiagnosed or improperly diagnosed.

So zebras became a symbol for rare diseases, shared invisibility, delayed diagnosis and advocacy.

My health journey has been a challenging one.

But through this journey, I have discovered that God gave me Dysautonomia, POTS and EDS because I have a big voice.

And for years, I used it.

But then I became silent.
And that is ok.

However, Substack has reminded me that I am meant to be an advocate.

And if being a zebra has enabled me to do that, I cannot complain.

So it did not surprise me when I opened my Substack account and immediately started hiding zebras in my illustrations.

Maybe part of me was hoping someone would notice one of the zebras and ask me why.

Perhaps my subconscious was searching for zebras in the Substack community without immediately introducing myself as someone with Dysautonomia, POTS and EDS.

Because I am Alex.

I am not a person with Dysautonomia, POTS and EDS who happens to be named Alex.

These conditions are one small part of who I am.

I am bigger than my conditions.

Perfectly Imperfect Friends…

Sometimes zebras can be easily seen.

Sometimes zebras disappear until survival requires them to come out of hiding.

And sometimes we are simply called by our names.

Love,
An Unapologetically Perfectly Imperfect Zebra,

~Alex

P.S. OK, OK… I will admit it.

Sometimes I come in like a wrecking ball with lipgloss and compression socks on. A new hidden talent!

Who am I?

Hi. Apparently introducing yourself is the thing to do around here…So here goes nothing.

Picking up her espresso martini, chasing it with a shot of green juice all while frantically searching for that last elusive Rolaid.

Note: The following is written in third person at the request of Alex. She is aware that it provides insight to who she really is deep down inside.

“Alex is your unapologetically perfectly imperfect friend hanging out in her little corner of Substack trying to explore the untapped parts of herself.

Her mid-life awakening began four years ago on May 15, when she sent a video to her father promising to carry on his legacy once he passed. He went to heaven three hours later.

The swift disappearance of her stepfamily added to her heartbreak.

During her mourning season, she managed to write a self-help thesis in an attempt to fix herself.

But it wasn’t fixing she needed.

It was healing.

Her writings became a voice for that healing.

She feels a bit like an imposter,

but is very aware that this chapter is needed

to finalize the healing she started

when her life fell apart.

She is ready to share her voice.

No longer quieted by others.

The overflowing filing cabinet that lives in her brain

is filled with true life experiences

wrapped in authenticity, humor

and vivid imagery.

A collection of random stories instead of a focused “how-to” Substack (although she appreciates the authors that provide such content.)

With Alex, you never know what you will get. And that is part of her charm. 🙂

Passing the pen back to Alex

Alex here...a reflective thought…I did not consciously write this in third person. That in itself is very interesting.

Hope you will join me on my journey to the next chapter of my life. It would be my pleasure if you would sit in my Substack nook and chat about our beautifully messy lives. (Even if I am still learning Substack and can’t fix the formatting above…Perfectly Imperfect strikes again!)

Your Unapologetically Perfectly Imperfect Friend,

~Alex

So many writers generously share guidance on how to “do it right” — and for many people, those systems work beautifully.

But I’m realizing not all of us are built for the same blueprint.

As a neurodivergent person living with chronic illnesses, I’ve spent years rewriting life’s instruction manuals to fit my needs instead of forcing myself into systems that don’t.

And I just realized:

Substack is no different.

It’s time to write my own rules.

The first — and most important — is this:

My rules are allowed to change as my needs change. That is absolutely okay, as long as I keep picking up the pen again.

Second:

I’m giving myself grace. I’m learning to accept myself as a perfectly imperfect writer and meet myself where I am.

I can’t promise three Notes a day and one polished article every week.

But I can promise both myself and you, the reader, that I will continue showing up to share my voice — honestly, imperfectly, and with the hope that maybe something I say helps someone else feel a little less alone.

And to my fellow zebras:

Your Substack, your way, is enough.

Perfectly imperfect counts too.

#neurodivergent #adhd #dysautonomia #chronicillness #narcolepsy #SubstackWriters #WritingCommunity

Me…

My father raised me. He was my hero. My best friend.
We watched football together every Sunday—so somewhere along the way, my healing started to feel like a four-quarter game.

He passed three years ago. Suddenly.
Just hours after I sent him a video of a live rendition of one of our favorite songs—the one we used to listen to on his reel-to-reel.

“I know you are tired… your living legacy.”

Three hours later… he was gone.

And just like that, the game started.

1st Quarter – Denial
This was the messy one.
Self-blame for giving him “permission” to go to sleep.
Chasing after the extended family I thought loved me.
Trying to fix everything.
Sitting in my feelings.

(Wine and texting are NOT a good combo.)

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trying to outrun something you can’t outrun.

2nd Quarter – If I can learn it, I can fix it
I convinced myself I was smart enough to figure it out.
So I went all in.

Self-help books. Podcasts. Different perspectives.
A monk, a psychic… God, of course.

If there was an answer, I was going to find it.

Looking back, I wasn’t really healing yet—
I was gathering tools… not knowing how to use them.

3rd Quarter – The real work
This is where things slowed down.

Therapy.
Not just grieving my father…
but grieving the family I thought I had.
And the childhood experiences quietly sitting in my subconscious.

This was the quarter where I started letting go of the first quarter.
Where the knowledge from the second quarter finally met something real.

I began learning how to forgive myself.
And others… if for no other reason than to free myself.

This was compassion.
This was understanding.
This was where healing actually began.

4th Quarter – Finding me again
Somewhere along the way… I started to come back.

My laughter.
My smile.
My reason.

Now, when I see the little “god winks,” I chuckle.
That’s just my dad… saying hello.

And maybe reminding me I’m still in the game.

Death is hard.
Families are hard.

And somewhere in all of it… I realized I had quieted my voice.
Out of what I thought was respect.

But silence isn’t the same as honoring someone. And I honor his legacy.

So this… this is why I joined Substack.

To find the voice behind the closed door.

And for the first time in a long time…

It’s unlocked.

Dear Perfectly Imperfect Friend,

The Red Lipstick Stain

Mom said,
Don’t put anything in writing
that you don’t want anyone to see.

I wrote—
in red lipstick.

The bus was cold.
I was the new girl.
She was the popular one.
I knew no one.

She was gossiping.
I was silently crying—
and plotting revenge.

The bathroom mirror said
**** is a BITCH
in red lipstick.

No one will know it was me.

She knew.
And then everyone knew.

I was the new girl
with the new stain—
still sitting alone.

Perhaps
I should have listened to Mom.

But some stains…
turn into stories…

My stories.

Puts on red lipstick.

Unapologetically Perfectly Imperfect,
Alex

Note: I format my writing with extra spacing and shorter lines to support neurodivergent readers (including my own ADHD brain). If it reads a little differently… that’s by design. 🤍

My phone rings—The Golden Girls theme song—and I know it’s her.
My best friend of 25 years.

I open her text and see a silly meme.

I laugh out loud.

Then I freeze.

I look around the room, half expecting someone else to be there.

No one is.

That was… my laughter.

I had forgotten what it sounded like.

While exploring Substack for the first time—
trying to decide if it was something I’d even enjoy—
I kept seeing the word “whimsy.”

What it looks like.
What it sounds like.
Even what it tastes like.

But no one told me what it actually meant.

So… naturally, I went to the Webster Dictionary.

(Okay, not really—but if you’re old enough, you get it.)

My neurospicy brain has to understand something
before I can truly embrace it.

Once I—former teacher and somehow still unfamiliar
with the word whimsy—finally understood it,
I was reminded of a moment in my 30s.

I was standing behind a trailer, helping my husband fix something.

Rocking back and forth.
Waiting on test results.

Talking… but not really saying anything at all.

And then, out of nowhere, I said:

“Life is all about perspective…
sometimes we just have to look a little harder.”

That thought stayed with me for years.

But somewhere along the way—
especially over the past four years—

I forgot my own mantra.

I stopped living it.

I picked up my phone again and laughed—
this time noticing it.

Maybe my laughter didn’t disappear.

Maybe it was just resting.

Somewhere between the grieving,
the reflecting,
and the growing…

I forgot the sound of myself.

And I think…

I’d like to find my way back to it.

Friend, I’m not an established writer…
but I think I have a few stories to tell.

Maybe to resonate with others,
maybe just because I need to get them out of my head.

Either way, I’m stepping onto the Substack field.

And I’m excited.
(And honestly… a little nervous as hell.)

Now that I finally understand
what “whimsy” means (aka simple pleasures)…

I’m starting to notice it—

in the basket I made for the farmer’s market,
in the first bloom of the weeping cherry tree
I planted for my grandfather,
and in moments like this…

where I let myself just write.

I’ve smiled more this week than I have in a while.

I heard my laughter again.

And I think…

I’m finding my voice too.

Poof - Alex

This space is written with neurodivergent-friendly formatting in mind—

short paragraphs, pauses, and room to breathe.