Hustle vs Chronic Illness

Back during my undergraduate years (BS in Anthropology) I was assigned to read a book entitled Stranger in the Village of the Sick. The premise was that people live in the world of health and periodically become members of a different society, the so-named “village of the sick.”

That book made me so angry. And, my paper on the book was a diatribe against the ableist premise. See, I was born sick. I have never known what it means to be healthy. As I get older, I get new chronic illnesses and my body finds new and unique ways of manifesting those underlying illnesses.

I am generally an active and engaged person. I love exploring the world. I am an actor at a local Medieval faire. I am an extrovert. I have a million ideas of things I want to do and places I want to go. But, sometimes my body just hurts too much, my brain is too muddled, and I am just overly tired and need to sleep for a day or two.

Today is one of those days. Like, I need to take a moment and marvel at the fact that I am writing this blog. Considering that this morning words are things of mystery to my brain and my pain levels are high enough to need “the big guns” and I am in thigh-high compression socks and arm warmers to help keep the pain spikes at bay. Because a thunderstorm rolled in.

Yesterday I had all sorts of ideas for what would be on the todo list today. And, this morning I have cut it in half. And, I may not even make that much. This is okay. My hustle looks different from healthy people. My hustle is a rollercoaster. My hustle requires day to day (and sometimes hour to hour) adaptation. My hustle is still valid. It is not subpar to those who can sustain active 8-10 hour days (at least, not innately). But, it IS challenging only in that the world at large expects a different kind of hustle and struggles to make space for those bodies that exist in the world differently.

I love what I do. I will keep doing the things I love. I will do them in the ways my body allows. This is my pace. This is my hustle. And, today, that hustle might just be getting this blog post done.

Cheers,

Tanya

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