[a moment] to grieve

 

[moment 219]

I'm trying to find a way forward.

I'm trying to find my way in this new world.

I am a person who loves to help, to give, to lend my time and talents to improve the lives of others. I also live with chronic illnesses, which, during a global pandemic, makes involvement difficult.  And it makes it even more difficult that we seem to have gone back to "normal" in too many ways for it to be safe for me to be out and about in the world too much. 

One thing I've found over the past couple years is that organizations and the people who run them don't understand how to include people who want to be involved, but can't do all their usual in-person helping and leading and doing. It's really hit home lately just how ableist this world is. 

I used to be very involved, but now I don't seem to matter in the least. My requests for conversation about inclusion of those who cannot participate in person have amounted either to nothing or to meetings where accommodations for my disabilities weren't respected in the least. My offers of things I can do to help are being "kept in mind" but don't seem to go anywhere. It seems that I have been written off by more than one organization after having to take time off from volunteering due to not wanting to put my life at risk. 

People who live with chronic illnesses deal with this on a personal basis as well. They have to say no to social interactions for a period of time, so people just stop asking. People begin to assume the answer is no or the person isn't up to it. What they don't understand is that the invitation is just as important as the event. 

There's nothing much I can do to fight the ableism at the moment. I'm too sick. I don't have the energy or the brain power. And so I grieve the loss of my ability to feel useful, to give to places that I once held dear to my heart, and the loss of feeling valued and wanted and accepted and loved by the communities at these places.