Unlike a fairy-tale

Staring out my bedroom window and it reminds me how similar it is to a polaroid picture. It's a long window which allows for a lot of natural light, not that we've had any in months, and has three suncatchers hanging from it. The view from here just frames a few buildings and trees but it's a little vantage point for me.

From here, in my dimly lit room I can make out the crow on a nearby television antenna. Stalking and staring down his kingdom, most likely waiting for his mate to come along before they fly off home to nest for the night. Usually they fly off at half past four, not that I have been noting that down...

Or the moss tracks on my roof, which have grown more in the past few months due to the rain we keep getting. A happy little biome unaware of where they are in the world, only set on getting more water to grow.

On good days I can sit here and look out and watch my local wildlife like it is the latest reality tv show. So far a family of seagulls like to outrageously yell at their youngest because it is very clingy and has not fled, two pigeons have learnt how to get food out of the small bird feeders in my garden and at night the foxes run along the walls and cackling like little kids at 11pm.

I am on series 21 of this wildlife watch and have seen the landscape from this room change. Sometimes for the better, and other times for the worse.

As I look at now, there are three chevron formations of geese. Ironic really that they just happened to pass over at this minute, but it is a nice reminder that Spring is coming. Soon. I just have to be patient.

You would think that is an easy skill for me to have. I have spent most of my life being patient and being a patient. No matter the practice I still cannot master the art, although I am better in some areas more than others.

Nature has taught me a lot over the years, and it is a constant in my life. I was able to escape to it a lot last year, when my life flipped me upside down. With every dread and ache of another hospital visit there were always points where I could just sit in nature and be. Even if I wanted it just to stop.

My body is very similar to the view out of my window. It changes so often I hardly recognise it somedays. Scatter with bruises like new constellations which I could swear was not there five minutes ago, or fingers so white they resemble snow due to poor circulation. Scars worn into my skin that I know like the back of my hand, which looks like forest paths.

I look at my body and try to make it sound beautiful, but I do not know how to keep that mental momentum going.

It is at a crossroad at the minute, suffering from the reality of being chronically ill and my body seems to be pulling out new diagnosis like phone models. The challenge of living with it is not something I find easy.

The indifference I feel towards it is noticeable and I have only really just started processing that. It is not that I hate or dislike my body.

I have just grown to resent the body it could have been.

Looking at my body sometimes reminds me it is real, even when it does not feel real.

Being the patient is a job, with the constant admin, chasing and breathing. Last year's total appointments proved that.

On one hand I am grateful for the healthcare I do receive, but on the other days I just want to fob it off. Leave it all behind and hope by some miracle it repairs itself.

But realistically I know that is not going to happen.

However I can adjust the plan ever so slightly. I will be grateful for the healthcare I receive but I can allow my body to feel the anger. The anger that rises up when you have been begging for years for someone to listen to you. The mixture of relief and anger because all of the waiting and pain could have been avoided.

Deep inside I hold a lot of anger, I imagine most people do. I am angry at some of the things I have been told or had assumed about (me) in clinics, and no matter the explanation from me it is always ignored.

I am done with hiding the anger. It needs to be released one way or another, and after all this time I finally expressed this to a doctor recently. This appointment marked what I like to call "someone finally saw me, listened to me and did what they said they were going to do" era. Believe me when I say it is a rarity when it happens but my god you realise that you are believed and validated.

All of my health is complicated, even the doctors admit that. When we think we have an answer for one thing we need an answer for another problem.

I have to at some point lean into my body more, without all of the anger, which I feel I am getting the hang of. Some days I am terrible but really I am making up for the teenage rebellion arc I missed out on. So I supposed it cancels out really. Check-mate puberty.

At this moment in time, I know a lot. I know that we have two solstices, one in the summer and one in winter. I know that when my postural tachycardia plays up, it can calm down with a handful of salt and leg elevation. I also know that despite how quick I can read a book, I also need to go to sleep at some point. The latter is a struggle as of lately...

My body is my own and at the moment I do not know how to help it. But I am making a truce with it, I will listen only if it does too.

I will continue to watch the sky out of my window, playing Taylor Swift's entire discography and watching the colours of the sunset until it tells me I can move again.

Just like the seasons, the view from the window and my body, everything changes eventually.

Sometimes you just have to see it, acknowledge it or walk with it to work out where to go next.

Molly-Tastic Treves