Things I do when I flare

Inspired by this post, an example of a writing exercise, by Allie Olson.

1. Watch familiar shows, without watching them – just with the sound on but with eyes averted or closed.
2. Watch videos on how to make button plackets, without listening to them – but on repeat so that I understand what’s happening since I can’t absorb the captions.
3. Think about the Unwelcome Knotweed in my garden and imagine pulling it up, but try to avoid doing so in real life.
4. Eat off disposable plates.
5. Will the cat the sit on me, to help me stay in place on the couch. 🛋️
6. Sew, but only one seam at a time. Maybe two?
7. Eat from a single pot of chicken soup, and hope it will last till I’m feeling able to cook again.
8. Drop things. So many things. I broke my favorite mug last week.
9. Turn my phone on silent for days at a time. So freeing.
10. Pay my taxes late.
11. Cancel pretty much everything. Make sure that anyone I actually talk to, knows how special they must be that I’m giving them my time.
12. Forget to drink enough water. Can I have an IV?
13. Notice things that I could organize, or mend, or read, or dust. Try to ignore them. Write them down so that I know I’ll do them another time, and hope that’s enough to let them go for now.
14. Look at my quilting books, all the pretty pictures and colors, to feed my increasing urge to create without having to sit up or use my arm muscles. Though hardcover books are pretty heavy too.
15. Take a break from calling my reps and reminding them that they recently started condemning the Israeli genocide of Palestinians — so it’s hypocritical for them to support sending more weapons to Israel. I have to put my own oxygen mask on first, as they say.*
16. Write everything down so I don’t burden my brain with remembering anything.
17. Validate my own choices to rest, to put my mitochondria and muscle recovery first, and invoke Maslow hundreds of times a day.

I do many more things than these, including tell myself I should be napping or meditating and then telling myself that should is not a helpful word to keep around, but napping is incredibly boring especially when it’s the task of not only the day but the week or, in my case, four years and counting.

Please check on your crips because we may be extremely bored. Or in pain, or nauseated, or itchy. We might have used all our migraine meds and still have a migraine. Or we might be hungry, so please offer to bring us food (and take out the trash).

* feel free to call/email your reps on my behalf, and let me know so that i feel like my voice has been vicariously heard.

kitten says naps are not boring.