Calamity

September 2020 has been a strange year. All of us are impacted by Pandemic in different ways. After spending so much of this year holding space for how people other than myself were impacted by this global event, I realised my insomnia, increasing panic, inability to focus, + general spilling over during the month of September was because I wasnt addressing how pandemic had affected me.

The thing I value most about myself is my creativity. It gives me ideas for stories I write, it gives me solace when things seem difficult because I imagine new possible futures, it helps me see connections between things for my anthropological writing. But I often neglect to treasure my practicality. When combined with my creative intuition this can lead to what looks like to others a jump or leap in thinking but to me is decisions I can’t yet vocalise as they have come from an inner place where words aren’t enough.

This practical behaviour has seen me through very stressful choices this year. I’ve had the reminder this week that just because I made the best choice out of a bad bunch doesn’t mean I feel nothing or don’t hurt.

Mid March I knew something was very wrong with me, I had pain all through my body, I couldn’t hold down (or in) food 5 out of 7 days of the week, I’d fluctuate between insomnia and then sleeping 13 hours straight. Id have fevers that lasted hours. I’d be so dizzy I couldnt sit up. I’d spend half the day in the toilet. My glands swelled up all over my entire body.

This came at a time when I had signed a new contract with my work with better hours that slotted into my uni week. I was beginning my classes and formal writing of my research thesis which I had been jokingly calling the “baby PhD” because I was treating it as training and entry into a PhD scholarship down the line. I also was a month away from my first appointment with a surgeon for Top Surgery.

Thats some big life changing things right there. I knew intuitively something was really wrong in March. So I spoke to my mentor/supervisor and he supported me going part time with my thesis. Yesterday, September 29th would of been my final seminar/class with my cohort. I would of been handing in my thesis on Nonbinary Genders + Cybernetics. And I am mourning the fact I am not.

I knew from late 2017 I wanted to go into Anthropology and do Hons. I started playing around with thesis ideas in 2018. Mid 2019 I started collecting the possible text books I’d need. I had 10k worth of notes and drafts by January, and a glossary and table of contents by February. My practical hard working Capricorn moon was in over time mode. While I will hopefully be handing my thesis this time next year this week marks much of what Ive lost from 2020.

It took until late May to get diagnosed with Glandular Fever. I still have no idea how or who I got it from. Someone at the gym who didn’t wipe the weights machine before me? A friend I saw in my 1 week off I had in February? Early June as the universes birthday gift to me I got diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Apparently its common for most adults who get diagnosed with Glandular Fever, and for most it continues for up to 2 years. While my intuition was right, in extending my thesis, in taking time off from work (which then was then out of my hands after Lockdown in Metero Melbourne kicked in), in postponing my Top Surgery consultations until the end of the year… its sucked. So much. While I completely support the Lockdown Victorians have gone through, and am thankful I dont have covid19 on top of Glandular Fever + CFS, its meant that in my house hold at least, we have had all shopping and groceries delivered where we then disinfect at the front door wearing masks before bringing it in. As cases in my area were so high, I did not go out for my 1 hour of exercise a day which meant not going out my front door for about 3 months. It has meant that since March until now, the only people I have seen face to face has been my family. Now that cases are a bit lower I am walking around the block, but I am mighty sick of the 5km radius around my house (no one in Metro Melbourne can go further than 5km from their homes).

This Lockdown has brought the astronomically multiplying cases of the last few months far lower. Going part time when chronically ill gave me the best chance at still getting a PhD scholarship in the future. Postponing Top Surgery gives my body the best chance at recovery and avoiding covid complications in the hospitals. The ability to go to my retail job has been out of my hands for a while now. The practicality of these choices feels right but emotionally I feel heartbroken at what this year, and what this Pandemic has taken.

My country has not seen the death tolls of other countries. But there has been many hundreds of lives lost that the federal govt could of prevented through better management + strategising rather than treating this as an opportunity to cull human lives. Just because the lives lost are less than elsewhere does not mean its not worth holding space for them. It does not mean I can’t mourn what I have lost and what other Australians have lost. Its without a doubt that Pandemic has drawn out the symptoms of Glandular Fever. Every time something stressful happens I have a flare up. I will never know what my health would have looked like without this encompassing stress. It affects every facet of my life.

This year has been a shit show. My Capricorn moon warns me that next year many not be an improvement so prep for the worst. Get those new anthro text books ready + plan your thesis + build a new work timeline. My Gemini sun hopes for something better though. The ability to connect with physical proximity to my friends + my family who live further away. For my health to improve. To get Top Surgery, something I have psychologically been working towards for 8 years. To successfully complete my Hons thesis. To be less financially reliant on a federal govt who treats myself + other Australians as disposable.

I hope for all of that, but for now I’m mourning what my hopes for 2020 were until I find peace with this calamitous year.