Party Hermit (and one year later)

It’s Saturday morning and I am awake before the sun has thought about rising. I like the quiet and darkness of this time of morning, especially this morning when there are a multitude of snowflakes falling from the clouds and muting the normally loud awakening city.

Some mornings I am excited and proud of myself for waking up early, getting a good start on the day (or something like that). This isn’t one of those mornings. Waking up this early means I got something in the area of five hours of sleep, which isn’t enough at all. Another reason for being slightly disappointed at waking up so early is that last night, I was hoping to go to a party – stay out all night, come home both excited and tired and then collapse into bed for many hours of much needed sleep.

Well I didn’t make it to the party. Disappointing but not unusual. After I had decided not to go, I had what felt like hours of argument and analysis with myself about what it meant that I wasn’t going. I wanted to be at the party but I didn’t want to get there. This morning I awoke to text messages on my phone asking “are you here yet?” and “where are you?”. It was a friend of a friend’s house party, someone who I imagine I could quite like and be friends with. Most of my close friends were going to be there, as well as those I have wanted to see but haven’t been able to recently for one reason or the other. I quite wanted to go, really. But I didn’t, why? I spent most of yesterday looking for places to sit down or lean against as I navigated public transit. I started work earlier than I’m used to and finished later than was expected, so I was a little tired.

But really it came down to how much pain I was in and if it was little enough that I could: imagine walking the five snowy blocks to the bus that would take me there; the two blocks from the stop to the party; and risk the possibility that there wouldn’t be enough seating once I got there and I would have to make due with leaning against walls or people while I tried to focus on the conversation through the burning and aching in my body.

I began to fret: what if this “taking care of” by body (read – never wanting to go anywhere or make long term hang out plans) begins to isolate me further because I am not putting in enough time into my social relationships? I worried that at the party people would ask if I was coming and someone would say “maybe not she doesn’t really come out anymore”. And then the cycle of not getting invited to things would begin and I would be walled away into my own small space of comfort, into the category of friends not to invite because they’ll probably say no or just not show up.

Rational worries? Perhaps not but there they are.

This month marks a year since I began relating to my body as one that could be labelled disabled. I haven’t “come out” as such but it is a word I identify with and, when in the right crowds, feel safe enough to name out loud.

I have no specific medical diagnosis, just a myriad of theories and empty test results. A year ago, when my body began behaving in a way that prevented me from living a life I was used to I thought: that’s fine, I’ll just get diagnosed with something tangible and go from there. Now of course I realize that there is so much more to it than that and it just isn’t that easy. It has been an exhausting twelve months of invasive, painful, dehumanizing testing, sceptical, callous doctors, over-prescribed medications and having to relate the same story, set of symptoms, habits, family history over and over again.

Twelve months of having doctors throw their hands up and suggest that although they don’t know what “it” is – that I shouldn’t be optimistic of a cure, and that I will probably suffer this way for my entire life.

Twelve months of medical professionals subtly or glaringly suggest that, according to what they can put on paper – have I thought that it could all be in my head?

Of having jobs, leaving them, living on EI, living poor, lying to my family about getting better and looking for jobs.

Of increasingly turning down more and more invitations because – there are no chairs, it’s too far to walk, I can’t bike today, and transit is expensive.

But! It is not all bad, sometimes it sucks and is hard but not all the time. Since I began accepting and living in my body as it is I have been lucky to meet and welcome as friends some pretty amazing allies in both the queer and disabled communities. I am stronger for those connections.

So now I am reflecting on where I was and looking forward to where I want to be. No answers yet, but I’m working on it.

xo

New Year, New Blog

Here we go, just diving in…

Garbage Day in Parkdale

this morning on the curbs

18 mattresses

7 box springs

3 chests of drawers

1 office chair

any hope i had of not getting the little bastards again.

I’ve just returned from spending ten days out of Toronto and in rural Nova Scotia. It was a long time to be away from my normal course of life, and occasionally such a disruption in routine can tickle my anxiety bone.

I had never been to this particular part of the country before. I have been lucky this year to visit Saskatoon, SK; Vernon, BC; and now Port Maitland, NS. Call me cliche but there is something unprecedented about looking out a window, or across a landscape and seeing rolling earth, uninterrupted by buildings or power lines. I loved it.

One of the most memorable moments of the visit was eating lobster – a Maritime classic. This was my first time eating lobster that I had also helped cook and prepare; and the first time I had seen the moving living body of my dinner before I ate it. I was very grateful to be able to spend time with the little creatures and thank them for their gift before they died. It made me wonder if I’d be able to do the same thing with a pig, cow, or chicken. I’m still not sure.

On the way home, I experienced my traditional under-the-skin panic that I get whenever I return to the city from being away, especially if I’ve been away somewhere very un-city like.  The crush and throng and shove of urban living can often be too much when taken out of context. But when I come home to this city I can’t always afford to live in, I am also coming home to so much more than tall buildings and high rent.

My family, both blood and chosen live here or nearby. At this moment, I live in the Parkdale neighbourhood – a part of the city with many West Indian residents as well as other immigrant communities. Yes there is the extremely gentrified hip contingency of Parkdale but when I think of living here that is not what first comes to mind.

What I do think is how almost forty years ago my entire family lived a couple of blocks away from my front door. My grandmother, father, mother, and aunts all lived in the King and Jameson neighbourhood and it is where the family history that literally made me into who I am, began. My mother and father met walking up Jameson. My grandmother walked from here to Bathurst and Eglington and back everyday before she could afford the bus. My aunt refers me to shops that still stand to pick up ingredients for my foray into Jamaican cooking. No other city is going to have that, and for now, it is what I need and love.

This city inspires me as well, and I’m not too good for a bout of unexpected inspiration brought on by the oddities of life in a city. Family, friends, food and of course, my cats. And always writing writing writing. This is my life in this urbanite landscape right now.

With this new year brimming in its infancy I hold on to the truth that maybe a good life can only be measured moment to moment.

And in this moment – life is good.