ring the bells / that still can ring

I always look at cookbooks for people who have no energy/time to do elaborate meal preparations, and roll my eyes. Like, you want me to stay on my feet for long enough to prepare 15 different ingredients from scratch, and use 5 different pots and pans, when I have chronic fatigue and no dishwasher?

These people seem to get it, though. It’s very simple in places. It’s basically the cookbook for people who think, ‘I’m really bored of those same five low-spoons meals I eat, but I can’t think of anything else to cook that won’t exhaust me’. And it’s free!

Because it is confusing. It would almost feel easier if there was no love there at all. But sometimes there was love. In the way they tried to protect you. In the sacrifices they made. In the ways they worried about you, cared for you, wanted a good life for you.

And at the same time, there were still things missing.

Maybe comfort did not come in the way you needed it to. Maybe your feelings were not always understood, or noticed, or handled gently. Maybe you learned to keep certain parts of yourself quiet because it felt easier than trying to explain them.

That kind of hurt is difficult because it does not always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from people who loved you deeply, but did not know how to emotionally connect in the ways you needed. People carrying their own wounds, limitations, fears, or ways of surviving.

And you are allowed to acknowledge both truths at once.

You are allowed to recognize their love and still grieve what you needed but did not receive. Those things do not cancel each other out.

Forgiveness, for a lot of people, is not pretending nothing hurt you. It is slowly accepting that someone can love you and still fall short of understanding you completely.

That does not make your pain dramatic. It does not make them monsters either. Sometimes it just means everyone was trying with the emotional tools they had, and some of those tools were not enough.

And I think many people quietly carry guilt for still feeling hurt by parents they know tried their best. But being loved imperfectly can still leave wounds. It makes sense that it affected you.

At the same time, you do not have to stay trapped only in anger forever either. Sometimes healing looks like understanding that your parents were human before they were parents. People shaped by their own experiences, their own upbringing, their own emotional gaps.

That understanding does not erase your feelings. It just softens the sharp edges around them a little.

You deserved emotional safety. You deserved gentleness. You deserved to feel understood, comforted, and emotionally close to the people raising you.

And if they could not fully give that to you, it is okay to mourn it.

But I hope you also know this: the love you needed is still something you can experience in your life. Through other people. Through chosen family. Through the way you learn to treat yourself now.

The story does not end at what you did or did not receive growing up.

with that context, I would like to provide some unsolicited advice to my fellow disabled people (particularly newly disabled people):

if it's something you absolutely have to do, as in there will be worse consequences for not doing the thing than doing it, try learning strategies for doing it disabledly. chop your vegetables sitting down. buy a tray to prevent spillage when you eat in bed. do your cleaning in 2 minute slots instead of all at once. you don't need permission to deviate from the Normal Way Of Things

corollary to the first point: if there are no (or very small) consequences for not doing the thing, and you don't want to do it, just don't. it's literally fine. I vacuum once in a blue moon and the lord is yet to come down and smite me for it

get okay with half-assing things. or even quarter-assing. or one eighth. etc etc. if something needs to be done, it can be done poorly. the world is not going to end if you get things done shittily (within reason, and within the bounds of what is physically safe)

learn to treat your body like a valuable source of data. try and pay attention to the signals it gives you, and the trends in when those signals arise. don't push yourself for the sake of it. they don't hand out medals for Most Energy Expended Doing The Task, and they never will. if your body is telling you to sit down, do that.

for the love of god learn how to ask for help, unlearn the shame of needing help, and figure out how to accept help without beating yourself up about it. independence is not inherently a virtue and you don't have to struggle alone