Since I lost the farm spring has become the hardest season for me to endure. I get to sit back and watch as all my friends and peers buy their chicks for the season, prepare their gardens, and make plans to expand their own little homesteads, and I ache to be part of it all again. It’s in my veins now and will never get out. I had so much going for me when I had a farm. I actually had a purpose, a function, a standing within an actual community, and I loved it. Mentally and emotionally I just thrived on the whole thing. Now I am stuck somewhere I can’t have livestock of any kind and it kills me to have nothing to expand or improve upon either. I mean I grew about one hundred fifty vegetable plants for my garden this year but the garden is… laughable. There’s not much anything but sand here and I don’t have the money to invest in artificially mending the soil, definitely don’t have the resources to replenish it like I did at the old place (with so much manure and compost!) I will do the best I can and it will bring me some joy but my need to be more enmeshed with nature is deep seated and spiritual. Working on a farm gave me such an inner peace.
Now when my body allows I escape into the woods and for those few hours I am finally at home. I sit on the rocks, listen to the birds, breathe in the fresh air, take photos with my camera, and just enjoy everything around me. For a moment I feel connected again. For a moment I am at absolute peace. But then I have to leave, return to reality, and I become morose.
I didn’t expect this winter to crush me physically as badly as it did. I was capable of almost nothing for months at a stretch and I went completely bonkers. Now my energy is returning to me my body is still kicking my ass and haunting my every step. The second I do too much (which isn’t much to begin with) I am visited with pains and fatigue that I don’t think most people can even imagine. I thought spring would give me respite but so far… I am still struggling, though I have made progress in my emotional state. Anxiety rarely drowns me anymore. A lack of toxic people and situations have allowed me to reflect upon my life and I have learned a great deal. But having come out of this monastic phase I feel it’s time to move on. My body seems to think so. I have the raging libido of a teenager, something I didn’t even have as a teenager! So something must be working in this weak shell of mine.
And this brings me to sexuality. It’s rarely spoken about in the chronic illness community but I think it needs to be because those of us with problems are still fully functional human beings with the same needs and desires as anyone else. I think the world at large sees us largely as asexual creatures, just existing on our own, and often we are. I was for the first twenty-five years of my life but now? Not so much. I equate sexuality with spirituality. It’s connecting to another individual, another soul, in an act of creation that binds us all to a much larger picture – call it the Universe, the energy that bonds us all, our creator, or God, I don’t care. It’s all connected. For me, it’s like a prayer. But I’m a crazy Pagan with very old world views.
My point is, having any sexuality what-so-ever when you’re chronically ill is… often impossible. I find myself alone, a precarious position to be in, living with my parents in their nasty hoarded up basement. Even if I met someone perfect for me I’d rather die than bring them back here. And even if it was a sweet little home I have severe issues sharing my private life with my fucking parents. I’m in my thirties now, I shouldn’t have to. But whoever ends up here… will be known. I feel like I have one option – find someone goddamn perfect and settle down. What if that’s not what I want?! Christ, the amount of drama it’d cause if I started having flings, or fuck buddies, or polyamorous lovers! I find the lack of privacy often too much to bear and I don’t bother. I haven’t signed up for any dating apps – don’t really have any desire to court the local serial killers. Another thing people with disabilities rarely talk about – how their lives are rarely wholly their own.
This brings me to a whole other issue – it is hard to meet anyone when you spend so much time at home. Trust me, if my body would cooperate, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here. I’d be working a job somewhere and living in my own place doing whatever I pleased. I’d also be out traveling, indulging in my hobbies and joys, and would be more likely to meet other people along the way. You know, “Get yourself out there!” Not relying on the mercy of godawful blind dates.
I think all this comes full circle in how disconnected and isolated one can feel when they have chronic illness as a constant obstacle. Suicide rates are phenomenally high in people who have had chronic illness for more than five or ten years and this is why. We’re strong people but we’re still people and we still need the same things everyone needs to thrive – connectivity! Be it with our lovers, our community, our family, or preferably all these things.
I know my entries are usually very positive but I’m just at a loss these days. I don’t quite know where to go from here but I continue to work on everything I was working on before and hoping and praying that something pans out. I have no solutions so I just keep going… hoping maybe to start a dialogue as I go.
**All black and white photos have been taken by me in the past month or so – some of my art, some of nature, some of animals, some of random fun textures. The colored photo at the top is a memory of days gone by – some of my Dorking chickens from the farm that was.**
