I’ve been struggling a lot with time: the spareness of it with chronic illness.
I am doing better but am not well. There are limitations, still. This almost liminal place between disability and wellness is a tricky one to navigate. I have time, I have the energy to ponder the time, but not the energy to use it all effectively.
A wasteland of ill used minutes, hours, days. Years.
So I want to write about it. I want to form words instead of doomscrolling in a fugue state where suspended intelligence is the norm and actually probably a requirement. Nothing will be very good, but it’s better than doing nothing. At least I’ll have something shown for my time.
My days are often spent balancing the complex emotional needs of a cockatoo whose presence nearly killed me (and still could) and tending to the hay beasts. You know, I’ve always been a rabbit person. They’re quiet, savvy, tacit. Subversive here, too, actually. In the age old dichotomy of cat person or dog person? I am the person who chooses the underground digging creature who is fond of looking glasses and full of folk loric intentions. Quiet, whimsical anarchy.
Guinea pigs are pretty cool, too. They needed my help, I had help to give. It worked out for many years. Maybe it’s the vegan-friendly version of the question: rabbit or guinea pig? What’s your herbivorous preference? An inkblot test for those who eat grass.
This is a progression, though. Across time rather than upwards on a hierarchy. I spent many years and many thousands of dollars, losing some of my health along the way, rescuing guinea pigs. Providing a soft place for them to land. Now, though, I need to share space with animal companions who are as equally cautious about extroversion and who enjoy the silence of subtle body language. The safeness of a space that works both for my fragile physical health, my decreasingly tolerant sensory battery, and my abilities, or lack of them.
It has taken many years to accept me at my worst, and that, regardless of how functional I may be at my best, that is not the limiting factor. My choices have to reflect the winter of my body’s discontent. My inner grasshopper needs to listen to the ants and prepare for seasonal lulls. I mentioned this yesterday, of course. It feels like a loss I have to justify. I will care for the creatures under my roof for as long as their natural lives need caring for, but I will not take on any more guinea pigs.
Ridiculous to most to have to say that like it matters, because most people do not adopt guinea pigs. But I did. And it was part of my identity. It was a purpose for a long time, and there’s still a need but I am not able. Not always. And ethically, one always needs to be a certain level of able to provide a safe home for many.
Dwindling numbers and my improved health are not uncorrelated events. I will never be perfectly healthy and I will never again adopt creatures that need me to be. I’m okay with that.
At least, I think I am.