valotar

[valotar]

here,

see,

this is what it looks like,

behind my eyes.

can you see it?

do you feel that emptiness between each heartbeat, that lonely echo?

do you understand?

[valotar]

listen.

this far up north we only get fresh produce a few months out of the year. i look forward to fresh-corn-season more than any national holiday, or my birthday. all the fruit is soggy most of the time, it comes from across-the-ocean, so what did you expect? everyone knows all the grapes in the store are rotting this time of the year. all the imported oranges were dry this year, and i don't know why.

i did not realize how bland our fruits were until i spent a week in france.

stuff tastes like so-much-more there, you know? like the sun.

i did not realize

how little i've been thankful for.

i did not realize how low the bar was.

you never really know what you're missing until you know, you know? the this-here flavor instead of something hollow. the sudden spot in the world you didn't realize was there for you. sleeping well. being wanted. being seen.

you don't know what you were missing until you get a taste for it. and then -

and then you never stop wanting it.

[valotar]

i want a house with moss on the roof and time to sit in the sun. i want a warm bed and someone to drink tea with. i want wildflowers and thin curtains and fresh bread in the mornings.

[valotar]

actually i'm not done. one of my friends sends me videos of puppies when she knows i'm stressed. one listens silently when i tell her we couldn't afford to eat every day when i was a kid. doesn't judge. makes soup for me. we share therapy lessons like gossip; we don't think like that anymore. what would you say if it was your friend.

it was bad enough. it doesn't have to be like that anymore.

this girl i only sort-of know shares the best bread recipe of her life with me and one of my friends always offers a hand when i'm getting up and i spend a three-minute-bus-stop-conversation with a stranger agreeing that we both hope that third stranger is alright and when we go our separate ways we share a smile.

my friends who i don't see often but love all the same send me pictures they think i would like (and i do!). make sure there's places to sit down in when we go out together. ask how i'm doing.

makes a discord role just-for-me without realizing. asks can-i-help. reminds us all that we are trying. we are healing. we are doing better than our parents.

(i've replaced the voice of my mother in my head with the voices of my friends, and my brain is much more peaceful now)

i send out an open invitation in case anyone wants to go try this new thing with me. two people i barely know the names of want to join and so we go and i love it. we're all just reaching out and hanging onto these threads of kindness! we're all just looking for connections! we're all human!! if we're both going to do this thing, let's do it together!!!

[valotar]

the world is full of love!! people are mostly good!!!!! we want to help each other!!!! there are so many kind strangers out there!!!! you just have to see it!!!!!!!

[valotar]

this girl i only sort-of know shares the best bread recipe of her life with me and one of my friends always offers a hand when i'm getting up and i spend a three-minute-bus-stop-conversation with a stranger agreeing that we both hope that third stranger is alright and when we go our separate ways we share a smile.

my friends who i don't see often but love all the same send me pictures they think i would like (and i do!). make sure there's places to sit down in when we go out together. ask how i'm doing.

makes a discord role just-for-me without realizing. asks can-i-help. reminds us all that we are trying. we are healing. we are doing better than our parents.

(i've replaced the voice of my mother in my head with the voices of my friends, and my brain is much more peaceful now)

i send out an open invitation in case anyone wants to go try this new thing with me. two people i barely know the names of want to join and so we go and i love it. we're all just reaching out and hanging onto these threads of kindness! we're all just looking for connections! we're all human!! if we're both going to do this thing, let's do it together!!!

[valotar]

of course i will clear a weekend for this, of course i will.

i don't think i'm very good at being gentle out loud, but i will come help you move. do you want me to make you a sweater? i have some scrap yarn, it's not expensive, i promise, and i need something to do. do you want to come over? i made bread. do you want a makeover? i'll dye your hair. i think i have face masks somewhere. i hope you're doing okay. it's okay if you're not.

just let me know the date. i'll bring boxes.

[valotar]

i didn't tell anyone, but

my real resolution was to stop having arguments inside my head. to not let the sound of my mother being mean echo any longer. to not pre-emptively prepare for the worst.

we don't do that anymore. we don't have to.

[valotar]

i'm disconnected and alone and the people in my peer support group talk about why would anyone want to be with a sick person like me and i am the only one in that group that is single.

i just feel like i'm looking at it all from the outside. love is something that happens to other people, right? i'm looking at this grest big something and it has always felt like watching a play. it's not for me - they are telling a story, and i don't know how to get in it. and i don't even know if i should. maybe i'd just be imposing. maybe -

maybe. maybe i've just always been on the outside.

[valotar]

i tell her not to wear jeans on the day of the surgery, because no-one told me. no, not even comfortable ones. they'll be a bitch to put on and horrible to move in.

my friends are always shocked about my health problems, it's so much, and yet i can't really get that to settle into my head because for my whole life my family has treated like there's not really anything wrong. i'm just being dramatic. it's just in my head. i should be able to do everything everyone else does, or i'm just being lazy.

do you know how fucked up that is? i'm 28 and i learned last year what actually counts as a fever. how serious angina is. (did you know you can get myocarditis if you don't rest enough when/after you're sick? because i didn't. my parents sent me on a field trip to a water park when i was on my second or third respiratory infection of the month). i definitely didn't stay home from school. i biked everywhere, with my untreated asthma and my chronic throat infections.

i only recently learned how the things i struggled with as a kid were actually supposed to be treated.

(no, it's not homeopathics and more exercise).

i remember being ten, or nine, or something like that, and learning my friend's family had medicinal cough drops. i didn't know they existed. every winter my hands dried so badly the skin would crack and bleed and the idea of using hand cream didn't even occur to me. i knew hand cream existed - it just didn't occur to me that i could do something about this. i remember telling my mom it hurt and she would just say - it is what it is.

same thing she said about my period pain, which turned out to be endometriosis 7 years later. when i had headaches, she told me to exercise. turned out to be migraines, ten years later. exercise is just about the worst thing you can do when having a migraine.

i've gotten all my diagnoses as an adult after seeking help myself, for problems that have been there for years but nobody bothered to do anything about.

and it's just - i know i have all these health problems. real health problems. and it still feels like - well it's not serious. it's not really much of anything. sure, i sometimes almost faint in the shower, but it's not really a problem because it could be worse. sure, my smart watch is constantly alerting me that my heart rate is too high, but it's not dangerous. sure, i need to get regular blood draws and i can't stand up too fast and i need daily medication and i'm in pain most days but i'm basically healthy, right. it's nothing serious.

i'm just being dramatic. right?

#chronic illness

[valotar]

sometimes i need to remind myself that i'm alive. that i'm here, that i'm free, that this is my life and i can get a cup of tea if i want one. i can sleep in. i can change my clothes and i can just have emotions without having to justify them. i can sing in the shower.

i don't need to explain myself to anyone. i can be happy without an excuse. i can be sad and it's alright. i don't need to hide.

i recently realized that all my negative thoughts sound like my mother. and i don't want to carry that anymore; i don't want to keep fighting these fights in my head.

this is my life. and she is not here. and everything is okay.

we're not doing that anymore.

[valotar]

here's the thing:

it becomes background noise at some point. like always walking mid-shin in water. it-just-is. there's so much you're so used to carrying that you forget it's there;

sometimes you get a new appliance and all you can hear is the hum.

but the thing is, after a while, the hum is just the hum, always-there, and your bones are so heavy, and your brain is so foggy, and life-goes-on while you drag through the days.

what i'm trying to say is that i'm chronically ill and i've never really been well. what i'm trying to say is that i don't know what life without this looks like. what i'm trying to say is that i've been on so many different medications for so long that i'm not sure what's a symptom and what's a side effect and i don't know what i'd be like without it all.

what i mean is that things aren't great. and they've been not-great forever. i mean sometimes it's better - sometimes there's sunhine and fresh bread and time to sleep in the mornings. sometimes the pain's gone. and sometimes it's worse, and either way i'm always just dragging my feet through this muddy water and eating my pasta and watching my tv shows and trying my best and always feeling a little bit hollow.

every time i talk about the stuff i have to deal with for my health, just, like, to manage, my friends are always shocked. it's so much. yeah. it is. but it's also just the background hum. just the water. just the heavy bones. just-the-way-it-is.

and i'm trying. okay? i'm taking my lead-lined bones for walks and i'm eating the fruits and taking the vitamin supplements and doing the breathing exercises and talking to my friends. i am trying to stay positive.

but there is still always the water. always the weight. always the hum, always the terrible echoing voice of my mother in my head, about how nothing is ever good-enough and how it shouldn't be this hard, how there's nothing really wrong, how i should just power through it. how i just need to exercise more. no matter how much i already do, i should be doing more.

but everything i do i'm already doing through this. through this always-there layer of extra problems. and i don't even know what things would be like without it.

[valotar]

i live alone, and this is the happiest i've ever been. i live in a crappy one-room aparment where the door handle falls of regularly if you're not careful -

and i love it. this place is more of a home than any other place ever has been.

which is to say, sometimes i forget i have a family.

my friends show me more love than my parents ever did. i'm still not sure what it's supposed to feel like, but by this point, i'm sure i've never had it.

it hit me like a brick that people care.

most of the time i don't think about it. but then i'm reminded of what most people's families are like, and i'm like. oh. there's this whole thing of love around them and it has always been there and i don't have that. i didn't know that was a thing. i'm alone, here.

and i'm happy, here. i feel like i can be myself for the first time in my life, i like my space and my house and my freedom. but i am detached. i have friends, sure. but they all have their own families to go back to, and seeing mine sort of feels like drinking poison. not bad enough to kill you, but like, definitely bad enough to know you're doing damage.

and i'd much rather be here, in my cozy little hobbit-hole home, alone, than go back to my childhood. but of course it's never that simple, just -

i have my little life. outside of that, there's this empty static area where things get messy.

[valotar]

i start worrying about christmas mid-november.

i don't know if i'll have to see him, again. probably. and i don't know if i can get out of it; i don't have a good enough excuse. that i don't want to will never fly. it will just start a fight.

my friend keeps telling me, you don't need to go. and i know! but i'm just picking battles here, just like i've been doing all my life. my mom will be insufferable if i say no. she'll put on the martyr show of the year. it's easier if i just don't fight her, just go, just to appease her - and then be silently gathering my mental health for weeks, after that, in peace. just like i do every year.

every year, i hope i'll have something better. somewhere better to go. someone better to see. and i never do. see, this is a thing everyone else does with their families, and they want to. and the only thing i'm looking forward to is the doctor who christmas episode.

i make elaborate plans with friends - tell them you're with me - you're dogsitting for me - you're volunteering - you're-anywhere-but-there. and sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. my mom is always mad. disappointed. sour enough for it to seep into the air. no matter what i do, it's never good.

and i don't know which is worse! i genuinely don't. it's bad either way. just different types of bad. if i don't go i have my time and my peace and i get to do what i want, but i'll have to keep defending myself. she will poison everything. and if i go - well. it will be bad, but quietly. it'll be a few days of performative togetherness that is never-good-enough-for-her and silent panic attacks in my old room. just like always.

i like christmas, in theory. i like all the lights, the christmas-tree-and-gingerbread-scented-things, the sweaters, the stupid christmas movies. i just don't like christmas in practice. every year i'm kind of hoping i would have to work over christmas, so i would have a good enough excuse to not go see my family. and that's fucked, isn't it? but i don't have anything better. no matter what i do it'll be bad. it'll always be bad, and i still have to choose.

[valotar]

my heart is overflowing and i think that maybe i want to drown here. there is so much love, all soft and pink and hazy, and people care. i don't know what to do with this, but people care. my friend finds me places to sit down when i get tired, says we'll rest for as long as i want to, and doesn't make a big deal out of it. says get home safe. reminds me that i should take care of myself, first. my friends still send me pictures of things they know i'll like, yes even the one i haven't seen in years. one of my friends always offers a hand when i'm getting up, because she knows my blood pressure is low. asks if i'm alright. sits with me, like there's nowhere else to go. and it is warm here.

[valotar]

of course, i say, come here. i made cookies. we can just sit for a while. here's some tea and a second-hand poetry book to take home.

i didn't realize it at first - it just sort of all fell into place. i live near campus and this is an easy place to come to; my friends call it homey. there's always warm bread and blankets and a sweater to borrow.

i've been growing plants and hanging up art for the last four years, here, collecting shiny trinkets on shelves and bringing home old books and learning how to bake. making this place mine.

and it just hit me, you know, that this place looks like i live here. like - it looke like it's mine. like i live here. nobody else. me.

and it crept up on me. that this is probably what home is supposed to feel like.

this is what i always wanted! a warm place that was soft and safe and all mine! a place where my friends could always stop by!

somewhere i could rest!

someplace that was mine!

and this is! with my all-year-round christmas lights and mismatching tea cups and my friends around the table, this is.

i just didn't realize that it could grow on me like this. slowly. quietly. in the background.

[valotar]

i hope you get loved so deeply that it takes root in your bones. i hope you feel the warmth of the sun, and there is no rush, and you always know where home is. i hope there's always sunsets and fresh fruit and a warm bed to go to. i hope it gets easier. for all of us.