Traveling for the Solar Eclipse Forced Me to Reckon with My Limits, Again
No, I can’t imagine the pain-free life she led anymore, but I wouldn’t go back
You’d think that, after nearly five years with my chronic illness, I’d have a pretty solid grasp on it.
But in fact, the changeable, ever-shifting nature of chronic pain makes it pretty tough to ever really settle into. Just when you think you know your “new normal,” you run up against a reminder that the only normal here, really, is a constant state of flux.
In a way, it’s fitting that the moon’s journey across the sun’s path is my latest reminder of chronic illness.
Much like the moon goes through its phases, so does my relationship to my chronic pain. The pain itself tracks pretty closely with my menstrual cycle, more or less. It ebbs and flows right along with my hormones, with the pain cresting in a full moon blast of agony right around the time I’m due for a visit from Aunt Flo.
I’ve gotten pretty used to riding this particular wave, plotting my life with an understanding that being social or leaving the house at all will be pretty darn difficult during certain weeks of the year. And yet, there’s another culprit that will send me right to Flare City, one which I forgot to tend to…
