I’ve lost 2 days of activity to arthritis, it began with flaring pain in both sides of my jaw and moved down to my entire spine. It totally wiped me out, spending most of my time in bed sleeping. This flare up has made me realise with a thud, that somethings just can’t come back.
I’m really been enthused and motivated to start this decluttering/minimalism journey and while working through what goes and what stays, I was also imagining how I wanted my life to be once I’d moved through it all. How I wanted my home to look and what activities I wanted to take up or take up again. I was really getting excited by the though of getting back into baking and cooking. You have no idea the split your brain goes through in working out what to declutter while also focusing on what to bring into your ‘new’ minimal life. I wanted to start making my own biscuits, savoury and sweet, so I put a lot of thought into what would be the most essential bikky cutters to have. I also bought a couple of small clay cutters, to cut out flower shapes in clay and was thinking about using them on fondant, for making simple, no fuss decorations on cupcakes. I think I’d been getting carried away a bit, though nowhere near how bad I used to be, then arthritis struck.
I am very aware of the loss of strength I have, loss of fine motor skill and how I’ve been moving around like a fragile 80 year old. I lost balance and fell today, right onto a box of soft items to donate. At least it wasn’t painful, but made me realise just how carefully I had been moving through my space. I want the space clear so I can go back to my carefree way of moving through my home. Only what I call carefree is really just my autistic oblivious to what’s around me. I’ve been stepping on things, walking into things and trying to navigate tight spaces for a while now and it’s all coming to a head. I can’t keep doing things this way.
While arthritis flares are fucking painful, it is a gift in many ways. It’s teaching me to slow down and just be and breathe at times. It’s causing me to slow my mind down while also becoming much more aware of when I start having rushed thoughts. It is a gentle, yet firm reminder that I am at a different phase of my life now and have to start thinking about what I can do and how I have to change things so I can keep doing them. I can’t need bread dough anymore but I can still use a bread machine for fresh, home made bread. I can’t do elaborate, 30+ step recipes, but I can’t cook some simple, nutritious favourites. I also have my slow cooker, so on days when I can’t manage standing at the stove, I can just toss a few things in that and cook for a few (or several) hours and still end up with a nutritious, home cooked meal.
I’ve also been looking into changing my diet and getting serious about it this time. Wheat has always been an issue for me but now I feel my joints getting super heated when I eat it, which is a sign of inflammation going on under the surface. I don’t get pain with that, just heat but that’s not uncommon, it’s still a flare up and if I want my joints to work well for as long as possible, I need to stop flare ups happening if I can. I’m also starting to question chocolate.
Sometimes you make life changes and sometimes life forces changes upon you.