HJ Waxing Moon

After we moved, my health took a sharp downward turn. There were a lot of changes that happened all at once, and so it was difficult to pinpoint any one particular cause. I thought most of it was just pushing myself too hard in the moving process, or maybe the fact that we had been in survival mode for so long and now I was allowed to give myself some more time for self-care. But that wasn't it. Shortly after we moved into our apartment, we noticed that a couple of our food items were freeze burned. We put it down to the old freezer which was not well-maintained, or some abuse during moving, and ignored it. Then we discovered brand-new food items were getting freezer burned. We checked to see if a vent was getting blocked, and checked for excess ice crystals. I checked the seal on the gasket on the door. We adjusted the temperature gauge with no change in temps or results. As time went on, I started noticing a metallic, almost anti-freeze flavor going on in our food. Everything b...

I was diagnosed with chronic illness at age 17, after 2 solid years of suffering and plenty more before of pain and misery. I don't remember more than 3 days of my life when I wasn't in pain. I spent a lot of time internalizing my fear of making goals and having dreams, because when you can't plan a week ahead, how do you know what next year will bring? How do you plan for decades when you could be crippled with pain an hour from now? Having dreamed so big and fallen so far, I have learned many things. The first and foremost of which is that my home is a sanctuary, even moreso than for the average person. I need a safe, clean, comfortable home to return to at the end of the day, sometimes even the middle of the day. These days, sitting at home usually IS my day. Finding my place in keeping my home, playing the dutiful housewife who can't do much physically, has been hard. It's been allegorical to finding my place in the world at large, as I sit here wondering what...