So here’s the thing: bad things are going to keep happening. 2024 was not a great year. I had surgery. Noah had surgery. I was sexually assaulted. Noah had a bursitis issue. My body has been well into melt-down/burn out for some time and my physical pain issues are ridiculously high.

When I felt this bad in California I had to keep working and driving. I saw a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, and a massage therapist nearly every single week in order to function. Now, I don’t function very well. I get the absolute basics done but that’s it and there is no way I would be safe to drive. I had a really intense conversation with myself when my California license was expiring. I had a few options. I could ask a friend to let me lie and change my address so I could get a new California license. Some folks have offered in the past. I could work harder to get a UK license, which would be the correct choice of course.

If I had a license I would feel compelled to use it. I would feel required to make other peoples lives better by using cars more. When I think of how much worse it often got in California because of all the driving? I thank my lucky fucking stars that I have reduced the stress on my life enough that I can control a flare this bad with yoga classes and careful pacing of exercise.

I haven’t seen any kind of physical support person since before my surgery and that was almost half a year ago. I am doing so much better physically than I used to do. I could be doing better if I had more support but that will always be true and I will not have the support so get on with it.

I can only do what I can do from this house. I don’t particularly want to move. The medical care in this city will be limited for the rest of my life. So I can’t drive. I can’t bear the strain.

I gave up having a license after 20 years of having a car meaning freedom and independence. I have lived in cars for a couple of years in non-contiguous spread out periods, never longer than 7 months at a stretch. In a real way giving up my license is giving up my normal Plan B for where I can go in an emergency.

I gave up on getting a license here after not trying very hard to start with.

That means my life will be necessarily small as I won’t ask someone else to do all the travel. That closes a lot of doors all by itself. I want to form relationships with people who live within approximately 5 miles of my house. That’s a significant limit.

I want to be open to the universe, to adventure, to opportunities but it feels like I am being closed down in ever increasing steps and it is weighing heavily on me. In a way the issue of increasing disability dovetailing with a reduction in financial status is convenient. I no longer have to consider how to manage all that disposable income. It’s simple: I don’t have it. I think I did well with it when I had it (paid off debts, built long-lasting wealth) and I think it will be ok to get off that train.

I don’t have to keep working like my life depends on it. Is that fair to embrace when everyone else does have to work in unhealthy ways to survive? There is no fair. There is no deserve. Life is unfair in every fucking way. Me working or Noah working to earn money so that we can justify the capitalist machine grinding people to dust is kinda weird. We can survive without giving our life to companies that make us miserable.

Why in the fuck should we try hard to stay in that? We do need to find ways to be part of community here, but why does it have to involve enriching someone else with our time? Because eat the rich. If we are honest about our life then we sure look like targets. Meh. When have I not been a target?

I want to be open to what comes in life. I don’t want to go forward with a specific size and shape and shopping list of what it needs to look like. I have so many limits. Creating more arbitrarily seems like a recipe for failing at life.