Today I was chatting to a friend whose teenage daughter has been incredibly sick. They are testing for celiacs disease, lupus and a whole heap of awful disorders with bizarre names. She is so worried because her daughter is due to move 100km away next week for university. She has begged her daughter to stay home and defer for a while until they at least know what is wrong with her. She is being rushed to emergency at least twice a week at the moment. The response from her daughter totally struck a cord with me and got my mind racing.
She said "I am really sick and scared and fed up and angry and so many things, but I want to be something other than just sick, so by going to uni, I am a sick uni student rather than just sick." When you are so sick or in pain or whatever, you do almost become defined by your illness or disability. A nice label for yourself so you can explain about yourself to other people. But you are so much more than just that label. I know this from all the times when I introduce my son who has a genetic disorder that makes him intellectually disabled, to everyone I meet. I introduce him as Elliot my autistic son. That way people know where to place him and feel more inclined to ask me questions rather than just stare at him and try and find a way to ask me what is wrong with him. The thing is Elliot is not even autistic, he has Fragile X Syndrome, but people understand autism and feel safe with that label. But for the last 10 years of my life I have hated having to label him to everyone to make them feel better. I often wonder if Elliot hates not just being labeled - "wonderful Elliot" instead of "Elliot my autistic son". I am sure if he could find the language to describe his feelings he would ask me to just introduce him as Elliot FULLSTOP. That is who he is afterall.
But it also made me think about how I present myself to people these days. I have been Lisa the chicken lady for years (because I am a freerange egg farmer) and Lisa and eggs just seem to fit in the same sentence with me. But now more and more people know me as Lisa with the bad back who is always ill, and at home I am Mum who can never do anything because of her back.
I am sooooo much more than that. I am a stresser and worrier. I am terrible with money and impulsive. I love food. I love gardening, I am passionate about clean healthy food and farming methods, I feel at my happiest when in my veggie garden pottering with seedlings and weeds. inspecting bugs. I am doing all kinds of things at the moment, I am learning masses about nutrition and exercise, I am doing the February NO BUY month, which has been amazing and could not be better timed for our situation. I am a horder that has suddenly had an "aha" moment and am ebaying anything that is not bolted to the floor right now. I cannot describe the elation and relief of shedding kilos and kilos of stuff and paperwork and more paperwork, and remenants of fabric and papers for craft projects. I am queen of unfinished projects and false head starts. I am not just Lisa with a bad back that is ill all the time.
I know that this blog was started as a journal for myself to help get me through a bad time. But I may possibly digress from this subject matter a bit more about things I love and am passionate about. My life, I am passionate about and I want to get more out of it. I want to find a way to move forward. I am sure that with my constant learning, my constant new projects and my passion for growing my own food and being a real cook from scratch person will creep in more. I am more than a bad back, and it was so nice to have my eyes opened to how insular and blinkered I have become since being incapacitated. I am ready (well for today anyway) to emerge back into being more included in living a full life and a life that is true to me and how I want to be.
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