Tiny Joys, Pt. 4: Love in the Time of Chronic Illness
On dating, getting my voice back and weightlifting.
Hello dear friends,
Last Friday, I completely lost my voice. It was a challenging time, because illness symptoms aside, it was very difficult and frustrating to not be able to speak! Who knew. It was particularly hard to run errands or talk to strangers, especially when people are impatient and think you’re just being shy and not speaking up.
One day last week, I tried ordering soup but mouthed that I couldn’t speak, and they thought I just meant I did not speak English. They proceeded to speak to me in French, and so I mouthed back in French, even though we were still back to square one.
While I was on vocal rest, I used this notebook for some key phrases. Turns out, this is all you really need.
(This is my version of Love Actually). After whipping through a few of these pages, I was told I was a “great conversationalist.”
So, I wanted to start off our Tiny Joys with one thing that newly brings me a lot of joy-my Voice! She’s back, and better than ever. I’m very grateful for my voice, and have honestly never been grateful for it before in my life the way I am now. I communicate through writing all the time, but communicating with my voice whenever I wanted was something I took for granted. Never again!
Another tiny joy that’s been a change for this past month is I’ve been dating again. As in, feeling ready for a real relationship. I’ve been putting off writing this one, and at one point a few days ago slammed my laptop shut and went, “God, no, too embarrassing.” But we’re back, because it’s been on my mind. And that’s what this dear little newsletter is here for.
I don’t write about dating a lot on here. Partly because dating hasn’t been a huge priority for me in my past few years. Or, rather, it’s been something I’ve been scared to really embrace fully and openly.
Within the context of having a chronic illness, for many years, I always felt like damaged goods. Why would anyone want to date me once they knew what I was dealing with? Even when I was in relationships before my conditions got bad, I never really let partners in at all. I was worried the weight of my health issues would be too much and push them away, so I kept it to myself. But I realize now that by hiding this from everyone, it wasn’t allowing me to be really emotionally intimate at all. It didn’t help that I was still in denial myself. It made sense I didn’t want others to face it, too.
When my surgeries began throughout 2021 and 2022, I needed so much support that the thought of starting anything romantic seemed laughable. I was in survival mode, just trying to save my vision. I didn’t really feel like I had much to offer, so I just poured all my energy into doing whatever I could to get better. But even when I met with rheumatologists to get bloodwork done, they’d prod me about my personal life and always be shocked I wasn’t dating anyone. Really? No one at all? But after going to the doctor almost every day at some points, I had no energy to put into someone else.
Still, at one point, something changed. At first, when I went on dates, I wouldn’t bring up my health issues or my vision until much later on, to still keep up appearances. To present the best version of myself.
And then, once my surgeries happened, I got really bored. After they operated on each eye, I couldn’t see for weeks. I just had to lie in bed while my vision slowly returned. Friends sent over podcast recommendations and music playlists. But I couldn’t really flip through Hinge anymore, so I decided to share that I had had eye surgery and couldn’t see, but did they want to send me a voice memo instead?
Over the next few months, I got a lot of really creative, awesome flirty voice memos. This was great for two reasons. 1) I think you can tell a lot about your attraction to someone based on their voice and 2) I was finally upfront about my health in a dating context, and it felt really fucking liberating.
That was a little over two years ago. Since then, I’ve grown a lot. I’ve been able to devote more time to myself, to love myself and not be afraid to share my health struggles with others. Now I’ll share it right away when I meet someone I like, because it has shaped my journey so much, that it feels wrong to hide.
But it’s all still an ongoing learning experience. I was briefly seeing someone last month, and although it didn’t work out, it felt good to be able to finally feel comfortable opening my heart to someone else again. To feel like I’m ready and have the space for it in my life.
And one more joy I’ll share has been my recent stint with weightlifting! I did, in fact, only go to… one class because I ended up getting sick the next day and was out of commission for a while. But that one hour at the gym while I was lifting those 5 pounders?! Pure bliss.
Now that I’ve regained my strength, I plan to return to my weights class. And if anyone wants to join or come spot me, let me know.
Opening my heart, much like weightlifting, is an exercise. But I’m going to try and do both much more often.
Thank you for reading, as always!
Love,
Julia
Voice memos are such an underrated way of building connection with someone! I've recently started sharing them with my friends who live far away, since we've been relegated to just texting for so long. It really adds intimacy compared to just text on a screen.