It's a Chronic Life

The most unusual side effect of chronic pain is that, after having it for long enough, you no longer notice that it’s there. That is until you have a temporary period of release. But even then, when it comes back, you think for just one moment “this is a normal feeling”. I have had chronic wrist pain for 10 years now, which is amazing because I am only 24. Eight years ago I had surgery, which helped more than I could have hoped for, but I still have pain almost everyday. Some days it’s just a little pain, perhaps a 0.5 on a scale of 1-10. But other days, like today, it will go up to an 8. Rarely since the surgery it will be at a 10. Over the years I have willed myself to accept the pain, just as I accept the fact that I have asthma. Neither health issue should get in the way of me living my life. They do, however, create setbacks. I run slower than other people, I cannot travel as far, and I cannot always hold my pen with grace or knit a row with even tension. It is said that the first step of recovery is acknowledging that you have a problem. Well, I may never be rid of my wrist pain, but coming to terms with it has helped me to learn how to live with it. Life with chronic pain can feel like it’s long, but it’s really too short to make it your focal point.

When I consider how my light was spent, I want to know that I did it myself.

Over the past year I have spent copious hours learning how to make things myself, completely homemade. Though I have not yet successfully dyed my own yarn (or spun it for that matter) I have advanced my knitting abilities dramatically. I have learned many techniques, including how to alter patterns to my fit own preferences. Recently, I just learned how to make my own dried onion/garlic powder, how to churn my own butter, and how to infuse vodka with my favorite flavors. While reflecting upon my new found skills, I wonder why these skills require spending hours on Google. Don’t get me wrong, I am wonderfully happy that Google exists to aid me in my new discoveries, but it is a shame that simple recipes, such as making homemade butter, has turned purely into a lesson of how to get the best package deal at the grocery store. Since I live in an apartment, I am unable to grow my own herbs, so I have to get my raw goods from an outside source anyway, but whenever I give someone a gift that I knit or offer them dinner with my own homemade foods, they are more grateful than I could ever imagine. And that is worth taking the extra step in making things just a little more homemade.