Today has been a non-day. I feel so ashamed and guilty about them, even when they are forced on me by uncontrollable physical circumstances. I have a physical ailment that causes me a lot of pain and some mobility issues, especially when it is cold or I am sick or very stressed. Winter is tough. I have done nothing all day. Talked to no one. Read, written a little, petted the pets, had lunch. Nothing else. Part of me feels so bad about this, as if I have wasted a day of my life. That part is like my skin. The part of me that wants to feel fine about it, feel grateful that I can rest and do as I please while my body writhes independently of my minds' control. I'd say my pain scale today is about an 8, but considering that I have not experienced a day below a '5' in years, and that I am now accustomed to levels that go beyond 11, it's pretty bad. The main difference between a productive day and a non-day is whether or not I can move my limbs. My arms don't hurt today, but my back and shoulders do, so I could only do a simple, slow task in my lap, like sew or type. There is also pain in my feet and my tendons are seized in a kind of perma-cramp, so it is difficult to walk today. Thankfully, this is occasional. My diet, exercise, fluid intake, mood and the weather all heavily influence it. I can control the nutrition and exercise issues (on the worst days I at least soak and stretch), but some things you just have to ride out.

Point being, I do have a concrete reason to do little or nothing. But I can't let that be it. Something in me drives me to need to feel useful, practical, low-consumption, high out-put. Maybe it came from the need to be good at things so I would be treasured, or at least less of a target. Or msybe it's the freedom and independence that comes with knowledge and skill. Anything to assure that I wouldn't have to live like this when I finally had the choice. I feel more pride in accomplishment than I do almost anything else.

My parents were lazy. Not always, but both of them were, and extremely, disgustingly, dangerously so at times. It would be impossible for small children not to suffer in such conditions. There were times when my mother would sleep for days straight and father would work nights and sleep days as well. We were too little to figure out appliances yet, so dirty laundry would pile up and become part of the floor. We would eat dry, uncooked cereal off the floor like animals, mooch around the house and the neighborhood, sometimes in the nude. We lived like wild things, and though we had family, friends and neighbors who saw it all, no one did anything to stop it. If anything, they enabled our parents and gave us false hopes by occasionally sneaking food to us, or taking us in, feeding us and gingerly pitying us until under our parents came out of their comas and then they sent us back to the pit. It's not just my physical condition that keeps me confined, though I freely admit I'd 10,000 times rather be sitting on a rock by a river and hating people than doing it from the confines of pain. Somehow a non-day is NEVER 'non' if you do it outside. That's therapy, that is.