Today has been a momentous day for many of my Warwick friends - one which it feels important to mark. However, having myself spent it mostly away from my house (and, consequently, internet technology) I do not believe I will be able to do them justice in the short time I have before bed tonight. Therefore, I have decided to write of it tomorrow, in what will be the first long blog entry for a while now.
Not wanting to skip a day, though, this post serves as an acknowledgement of a realisation I have had this week. I am between two states, inhabiting a sort of limbo, in all aspects of my life right now. My physicality is fundamentally different and yet I am somehow merely returning to the way things have always been. I am hyper-aware of my body, but this new awareness seems to have arisen through me taking a moment to distance myself from my previous hypersensitivity. I am still a student (and will continue to be involved in academia for some time yet - more on that soon) but I am also living in a world vaguely akin to that of adulthood, with rent to pay, appointments to get to and meetings to have, functioning as an entity separate from my parents - all whilst living at home.
In other words, I am a bundle of paradoxes, but I think that's why things are good right now. Body-wise, I've had a long hill to climb, and the fact that I feel I'm now treading familiar terrain means that I did not actually lose all the abilities I had in childhood - or the muscle- and cell-memory of them, at any rate. Also, having guaranteed care support (from my dear Mama) has allowed me to be more adventurous about life, because it has given me a glimpse of what is possible when one's first consideration is not whether there will be help to get out of bed - and it's made me determined to continue improving physically alongside building a team of people around me who can help to achieve that. Mostly, though, in having a safe space, I have been able to create my own safety, to get my priorities in order, and to have the confidence to trust myself instead of leaving my self-worth up to others.
Regression, oddly, seems to be synonymous with progression, both physically and mentally. Except it's not really regression - and I guess this is crucial - because, although I'm revisiting the realms of my teenagehood, tackling food and physio and mental health, I am no longer a teenager. So I can take what I have learnt since then and use it for my benefit - and that feels wonderful.
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