So, hello. I'm chronically ill

People react all sorts of ways to hearing that. My favorite reaction is interest. Being chronically ill and disabled, granted, is beyond hard, and people are scared of that reality. But being disabled is also so beautiful, and I don't mean in that fuck ass inspiration porn way. Please never tell me I'm inspiring. I mean it in all of the intricate ways my life melds around not being able-bodied-- how deeply I know my own body, the systems I've carefully created to take care of myself, how it deepens my relationships, the way it informs my politics, and so much more. Being chronically ill is such a big part of my life and it holds hands with nearly every facet of my perspective. To be scared of hearing about that is to be scared of knowing me.

So, welcome. Thank you for paying attention to my voice. I've been reading Disability Intimacy lately, which is a series of essays collected and edited by Alice Wong. It has partially informed the ways I talk about my relationship with being disabled, which is so powerful and rare. I want to thank Alice Wong and all the authors that have opened my mind up to my own disability intimacies.