Here’s a thing to think about.
Living in the United States right now is weird.
Like, there are shittier places to be alive – more ecologically degraded, more polluted, and so on.
And there are more dangerous places to be alive – Ukraine and Israel/Palestine spring readily to mind.
The United States is more a sort of rolling, low grade panic -attack kind of place to be alive right now.
Because, get this. The US is this great big shining beacon of freedom and safety, right? It’s this idea, and an ideal, supposedly made real.
Except when it isn’t. Which is, like, all the time.
At any moment, you could be lying in bed asleep, and
the police could burst in, guns blazing, because they got the address wrong.
the police could burst in, guns blazing, because some kid decided to play a stupid prank.
a neighbor could burst in, guns blazing, because he doesn’t like the way you mow your lawn.
some random stranger could burst in, guns blazing, because he doesn’t like your bumper sticker.
or your preference for a life partner.
or your preference for reading material.
or the color of your skin.
or, you know, mix and match any of the above conditions. Or all of them all at once.
It’s maybe not terrifically likely. But it happens. It happens to someone almost every single day. And the longer you are alive in the United States, the more odds stack up. And so, living here, you have to wonder:
When is it going to be your turn?
Anyway, here’s to mental health. You find any, let me know.
Fully-able people just plain don’t understand disability. They can’t. Not really.
For the able, disability is temporary. They heal. The pain and the suffering have an end date.
For the chronically disabled, the suffering is endless – if not absolutely constant, or even consistent.
This has been the biggest difficulty to adapt to as my life has changed in the last few years. My understanding of this phenomenon is still developing. My acceptance is proving much, much slower to develop. My disability is not great, escpecially not in a relative sense. But goddamn.
But, I think, I am finally coming to terms.
I’ve stopped asking, “When will it stop?”
I’ve started asking, “How do I manage it for today?”
For the able, disability is temporary. They heal. The pain and the suffering have an end date.
For the chronically disabled, the suffering is endless – if not absolutely constant, or even consistent.
This has been the biggest difficulty to adapt to as my life has changed in the last few years. My understanding of this phenomenon is still developing. My acceptance is proving much, much slower to develop. My disability is not great, escpecially not in a relative sense. But goddamn.
But, I think, I am finally coming to terms.
I’ve stopped asking, “When will it stop?”
I’ve started asking, “How do I manage it for today?”
About what does one write, when one has as much ability to give a shit as in impacted bowel? Which is to say, I am…. I can’t. I just…can’t. And yet, I feel…compelled…to express myself. With absolutely no concomitant compulsion regarding subject matter. I can stir up no definite opinions, nothing that seems worthy of expression. Let alone anything that seems to require such effort. I do no give a flying prolapsed anus about any of it. Which is almost certainly little more than a defensive reaction to the wholesale slaughter of human/humane ideals that we see every day. But even recognizing that, and acknowledging the vanishingly small urge to express myself, and taking onto account my inherent laziness….
I can’t.
I also, it would appear, can’t stop.
If I had just a liiiiiiiitle more drive, I could be a passable politician.
Fuck that shit.
And good night.