Idk What I'm Doing

eleven medications

ten hours sobbing

nine more referrals

eight yoga gurus

seven “just eat healthy”s

six ableist jokes

A FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR BILLLLLLLL!!!!!

four insurance calls

three malpractices

two new diagnoses

I often wonder if this is why you so commonly see the sentiment that we are in an era of uniquely bad literature, or at least that the fact that most books don't have artistic aspirations and are not aiming to be anything other than mindless entertainment is new. In fact what's new is the idea that everything is worth preserving (and also the internet making it easier to preserve it). The dumb artistically unambitious trash books of the past have survived only sporadically, because people thought of them as literally disposable.

It flirts with the idea of rebellion and emancipation from slavery but ultimately discredits those notions by having the rebel leader become a lead cop in the institution that was repressing him and by making emancipation seem silly.

It reflects the chauvinisms of a British aristocrat who offers an impossible narrative of an abused child escaping abuse through the purity of their Aryan magic blood. It’s a fantasy that doesn’t even pretend to offer catharsis or self-actualization, merely hundreds of pages of occasionally racist drivel about a special little boy who joins the SS after reforming them from the inside.

Sometimes using a wheelchair means you can no longer get to the places that used to be important to you, and not because of man-made inaccessibility. I have sat with someone as they cried because they could no longer visit the place they had scattered a loved one’s ashes because not even the most expensive wheelchair in the world could handle the terrain. As much as I wanted to, my wheelchair meant that I couldn’t position myself in a way that would allow me to give them a proper hug. In that moment, our wheelchairs felt more like heavy weights than freedom.

And sometimes wheelchairs are like the legs of someone who can walk but would maybe benefit from a wheelchair themselves. Sometimes wheelchairs are exhausting and painful and you’re counting down the time before you’re able to be lifted into bed. Sure, like painful legs, you can do more with them than without, but constantly performing gratitude for something that hurts you is exhausting. And again, not because you need a better wheelchair, but because those are the limits of your body and the technology that exists.

When I lie there, in the mornings, And the time ticks overhead, I think of the rooms I am not in.

I think of my peers at work across the states. I think of coworkers and desks, papers and lines. 8 am. The day is starting.

I think about the things I said I'd do and the things I signed up for. I think about the distance from my bed to my desk. The distance to the fridge, the distance to the bathroom, the distance to my door. 8 30 am.

I lie there, listening to my heart, thump away.

I think about my Mom. I think about how she would look at me.

"It's already 9", she would say.

"Its a waste."

I listen to my heart beating at 10. The pill bottle on my desk stares at me.

I don't think about yesterday. I don't think about tomorrow,

I don't think about tomorrow.

I give up.

I plead.

I let go.

I look away.

I try again.

I give up.

Sunlight streams through the windows. The wind softly rolls on.

I certaintly don't scream. It's only 11 am, and,