What’s the deal with haircuts?

May 28, 2020

I ask this in all seriousness: why are people risking their lives for haircuts?

If you live in another country, you might not know what I’m talking about. Here in the U.S., businesses are opening up again. In many states, hair salons have opened, and people are flocking to them. In my state of Massachusetts, that is happening this week. Even though hair salons pose a higher risk than many other businesses, they are among the first to open because of public demand. Reopening is happening based on politics, not science.

I can’t understand why people are running for haircuts. They celebrate on social media, “Yay, I booked an appointment!” I don’t get it.

To be fair, I have never been as fashion-conscious as most. Still, I would love to get my haircut. I just don’t think it’s worth risking my life or the lives of those with whom I come into contact. Why are people acting like it’s so urgent? Why not wait?

Obviously, I would love to go out. If it were safe to do so, here’s what I would love to do, in order of preference:

  1. Hug my parents.
  2. See my physical therapist.
  3. See my occupational therapist.
  4. Get some needed blood work.
  5. Visit with close friends.
  6. Take a walk without worrying about being too close to people.
  7. Pet every dog I see.
  8. Buy my own groceries (especially so that I can manage my food restrictions better.)
  9. Visit with my parents. Yup, they definitely deserve to be on this list twice.
  10. Travel. Preferably to someplace on the ocean. (Even if it were only an hour away.)

Getting a haircut isn’t in my top 10. I doubt it’s even in my top 20. Yes, I’d love to get my hair cut, and if it were safe, I would probably plan to do it in the coming weeks, but it’s far from a top priority. So I just don’t understand the obsession. I’m sure that some people feel that it’s safe (at lease for them.) But what about everyone else? Can you explain it to me, because I would really love to understand.

Meanwhile, have you thought about your top 10 priorities for when those things become safe? Or even your top 5 or top 3? Please share as many as you feel comfortable sharing!

2 Comments | Expectations, Frustration, Isolation, Limitations, Rants | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Finding my new (figurative) voice

May 21, 2020

I haven’t written here for a while, and I have been trying to figure out why I feel less motivated. Is it the pandemic? Is it that I have run out of things to rant about after nearly 9 years (wow!) of this blog? I have finally had to admit to myself that it’s neither; it’s my book.

Many years ago, I decided to write a book about living with chronic illness. I plodded along slowly for several years, finally picking up the pace about a year ago. More recently, I have been spending a lot of time working on it. But lack of time isn’t why I haven’t been writing here.

In addition to the time I have spent on the book itself, I have also spent a lot of time talking and writing about the book. I am in writing groups with other authors, I talk to family and friends about it, I talk to interested strangers about it, I post about it on social media, I write about it to the followers on my email list. But the effort of talking and writing about the book isn’t what is stopping me from writing here, either.

Finally I figured it out: it’s my voice. You see, I chose to write the book under my real name. I am sharing a lot more there than I am used to sharing publicly. At the same time, I am sharing less than what I have shared on this site. I am finding a new balance, and in the process, I am holding back on some things. The question I ask myself isn’t, “Should I talk about this in an email or on the blog?” Instead, it’s, “Should I talk about this under my real name or use my pseudonym?” For years I leaned towards the latter but more recently I have been leaning towards the former. And as I share more with my other audience under my real name, I struggle with not sharing those same stories here. After all, how can I maintain my anonymity here if I share the same story under my real name?

Don’t worry, though, I am not abandoning this blog! Instead, I am simply finding a new balance. As with many things in life, this is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. At the beginning of the book, I had to find that balance and I did. Now am finding it again, and the pandemic only complicates things. When I eventually publish the book, I am sure I will need to find that balance again. This is just how things go. But I am sure that I will be find my ranting mojo before too long.

Meanwhile, I would love to know, have any of you ever written books about chronic illness? If so, did you write under your real name or a pseudonym? Did you enjoy it? Was it well-received? Please tell me all about it in the comments! Feel free to share the link to your book so that others can find it, too.

As for the link to my book, well, first of all the book isn’t done yet, so there’s no link. But also, there’s that whole anonymity thing again. If I share the link to a book that’s under my own name, then I won’t be so anonymous anymore, will I? And while I may one day be comfortable sharing all of the stories about myself that are on this blog (I’m mostly comfortable with that now, in fact), there are some stories here about family, friends, dates, and others that are not mine to share. I always checked with them before writing those stories, but they agreed to be mentioned on a blog that was anonymous, and it wouldn’t be right to change that now. So this blog will remain anonymous. Still, my hope is that when my book is one day published, you will find it anyhow. And that it will bring you joy and comfort.

3 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Raves | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Changing the subject

April 23, 2020

All roads, and conversations, lead back to coronavirus. That’s how it feels these days. It’s exhausting.

Even the things that aren’t explicitly about cornavirus end up being related. Someone asks what I did with my afternoon. I made masks. I ask them about their weekend plans. They can’t go out, so they’ll be working on a jigsaw puzzle. I suppose it’s inevitable that when our lives become so collectively upended, we’re going to keep talking about it. Of course, for those of us with chronic illness who know that family and friends get tired of hearing about our illness, this feels a bit hypocritical. But I hope that it leads to more compassion going forward.

Personally, I find it stressful to be constantly focused on the pandemic, so I handle it in the best way I know how: I change the subject. I ask what books they’ve read, what movie’s they’ve watched. I ask about their job, about their kids, about the weather. I tell them about something interesting that I read or did.

Sometimes a subject change isn’t enough. They keep coming back to the big C. More than once, I have explicitly told someone, “Talking about this is stressing me out. Do you mind if we talk about something else?” If that doesn’t work and they keep going back to it, or if there’s a group of us talking, I’ll say, “I can’t handle talking about this right now. Let’s talk another time.” Is it rude? Maybe. I try to keep it light, but I can’t control how someone else takes it. And at the end of the day, my own mental health is important.

Some people feel the need to talking about the pandemic and our collective isolation. I get that. For them, talking about it is helpful. It’s a way to vent. For others, it becomes an unhealthy obsession. Either way, it’s not healthy for me to talk about it. Oh sure, I discuss it here and there. It’s hard not to. But when I feel myself being drawn in, feeling stressed, or otherwise responding badly, I pull away. I change the subject.

Maybe you’re someone who wants to talk about this situation constantly. Maybe, you feel the need to discuss it about 99% less than you currently do. Likely, you fall somewhere in the middle. Regardless, I encourage you to figure out what your sweet spot is, then figure out how to reach it. It can be difficult to finesse conversations. I get that. It can’t always be done, like in formal settings when the manager says, “Let’s all go around the group and talk about how we’re doing before we start things.” I understand why they do that, but it stresses me out and I wish they wouldn’t. Sometimes I leave the conversation. Most of the time I stick it out, and that’s why it’s more important than ever that my social conversations remain social and not stressful. I hope that you can find a way to get the social conversations that you need as well.

What have your conversations been like regarding the pandemic? Have you found a balance that works for you? Would you like to discuss it less or more? Please comment below and share your perspectives and experiences!

7 Comments | Decisions, Expectations, Frustration, Rants | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

When the solution becomes the problem

March 31, 2020

How do you handle fear? It’s one of the most basic human emotions, and something that we all experience from time to time. Right now, I would guess that more of the world than usual is feeling it on a regular basis.

I don’t know if there’s a “right” way to handle fear, I only know my way: planning, control, and facts. When I’m scared about a new medical test or a current flare or even something not health-related, I deal with it by focusing on the facts, and making plans for what might happen. That allows me to feel in control, which in turn reduces the fear. It’s not perfect, but mostly it works.

Right now, that’s not possible. We have few facts; this is a disease that didn’t exist in humans just a few months ago. The facts that we think we know, keep changing. It also depends on which experts we ask.

Making plans makes things worse. One downside to being a planner is that I’m great at looking 10 steps ahead. I read a lot, so I understand a lot about the world, not just in terms of the pandemic but in general. On top of that, I’m smart. I’m also a logical thinking, very left-brained. Put all of that together, and I have some very clear ideas about where the world might be headed. I have multiple scenarios in mind, based on what actions are/aren’t taken and what so-called facts turn out to be true or false. None of them are good, though some are worse than others. Unfortunately, so far my predictions (made 2 weeks ago) have been accurate.

Not only is making plans very difficult, but there’s another wrinkle: they don’t help. There is absolutely nothing I can do to make the situation in the world any better. There is nothing I can do to make it so that I can sooner see my family or my friends, go out socially, date, have sex. Nothing.

The best I can do is make plans to keep myself alive and healthy. So far I am doing that through day-to-day actions. There are no long-term plans to be made. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing: staying in my apartment, carefully cleaning the groceries that my neighbor brings to me, leaving my mail to sit in the corner of my home for a week (I’m cautious and also not that interested in the mail.) My “plans” involve planning meals, ordering extras of my prescriptions in advance, choosing ebooks to download, and texting friends to stay in touch. Those are not long term things.

Looking at “facts” is not only unhelpful, it’s incredibly stressful. It makes me feel a lot worse. Ditto for making plans. I never tell anyone my predictions because I don’t want to upset anyone, but they aren’t great. I hope I’m wrong, I really do. But in the meantime, having those thoughts in my head only makes things worse. Even as I type this, I am being careful not to think about anything in detail.

So what’s the answer? For me, it’s focusing on the day-to-day. As a planner, that has always been incredible difficult. I thrive on thinking about the future, not only to handle fear, but also to increase excitement about fun things to come, to work out solutions to problems, and more. Avoiding thinking about the future is taking a real effort.

I like reading the news, but right now that’s stressful. Still, I don’t want to avoid the world, and there are other things happening. So I am reading the headlines every day, and trying to only read articles that are not pandemic-related. I am not succeeding 100%, but the reduction has still helped immensely.

When family and friends talk about the pandemic, it’s hard not to get drawn in. I have always been political, so it’s hard not to get sucked into conversations about the way our politicians are handling things. But since I hugely disagree with almost everything they are doing, yet have no ability to change it, this upsets me again. Whenever these topics come up, I try to change the subject. Again, I do not succeed 100% of the time, but any reduction is helpful. I am trying.

Focusing on the day-to-day can be especially hard when so little else is happening. When I talk to someone and ask, “What’s new?” they don’t have much to say. I am trying to focus instead on question like, “What have your kids been doing to stay busy?” “What are you reading right now?” “What shows or movies have you been watching?” It helps a lot to have something else to talk about, and it gives me ideas of shows and movies to watch. For my part, I tell them about the books I’m currently reading, the bird that’s building a nest outside my window, or anything else I can think of on a neutral topic. I ask about their families and tell them about mine.

This is hard. There is nothing about this situation that is easy for anyone. I am alone, and not being around other people is hard. Others are with families that are crowding them and they need time alone. Yet others are in unhealthy home environments are need to leave but can’t. We are scared. Kids aren’t learning. People are losing their jobs or becoming overworked. There’s a lot of stress out there. So yes, it’s damn hard.

That’s why I am focused so much on taking it one day at a time. It doesn’t fix anything in the long term, but it makes this manageable for me in the short term. For now, that needs to be enough.

And one more thing: when I need to, I have a good cry. Because that’s ok, too.

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Posted by chronicrants

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