OK, I'm back.
Bonnie, I honestly think that the people who use down-time with an illness to master a new language or whatever are either not sick enough, or have had a more acute illness than ours; an illness that follows a definite trajectory of crisis / healing / recovery / renewal. We don't have that certainty, and the constant grind, constantly changing abilities and brain fog can make it very, very difficult to achieve our goals.
I think it's important to accept that chronic illness will change our lives, and may lead us to live smaller lives than we might have wanted.
I'm seventeen years into my illness, Bonnie, and all I can say is "you are what you do". I made a few rules for myself several years ago - one of them is "make life-affirming choices" - and I find they really help me to stay on a straighter path. Yes, I have long periods where I wobble and drift and feel as if I'm accomplishing nothing, but I always try to remember that each little thing I do will add up over the years to help me become the person I'll be when I'm older. So... I try to listen to highbrow radio instead of the lowbrow station; try to avoid bad tv; try to read decent books instead of sensationalist rubbish. And really, Bonnie, it does add up over time: I have found that people are occasionally surprised / impressed at the esoteric things I know, or at what I have read, and most of that is because of things I've listened to or read at the most difficult times of my life. And it stops me from becoming the type of mindless patient I see all too often in my frequent trips to hospital.
I always keep a running list of things I want to accomplish each week. I'm fighting mild depression at the moment, so this month, I get bonus points for every day I remember to smile, even though I don't feel like it. Sometimes I use a similar system to remind myself to improve my posture. Again, it does add up over time, Bonnie. I can smile much more easily this week than I could last week.
OK, you may not be able to work at a zoo yet, but perhaps you'd be well enough to help care for an ailing neighbour's pet, or feed the birds from your balcony, or do something - anything - that will get you nearer to animals. You may not be able to learn Spanish, but you could hire the occasional Spanish film and pick up a few words that way. You'll be surprised at what opportunities can
open once we make baby steps to develop an interest, and once others detect that we have that interest.
Oddly enough, spending too much time
on the forums has made me into more of a leader and mentor in my real life: again, it's all about
practising skills, even if in a small way and even if online, and then allowing them to build slowly over time. You may find that you experience a similar transformation too, between using this forum and writing on your blog.
I have some thoughts about
volunteering etc too, but I think I'd prefer to discuss them off the forum, if that's all right with you. You are very welcome to email me if you'd like to chat more.
Bonnie, I think that we have to work a lot harder than normal people to achieve *anything*. The positive side of that is that anything we *do* achieve tends to be much more valuable than a normal person's achievements. Be kind to yourself, hon. You are going to uni; you've held down a job; you have a relationship; you are doing really, really well and should be proud of what you have been able to achieve under such difficult circumstances. It may well be that you are doing all you can right now, but that doesn't mean that there won't be time and energy for the other things later. Just go with the flow; try not to focus so much on achievement, but see what happens if you "just be"; and be gentle on yourself because I really do think you are achieving a lot more than you realise.
Keep smiling.
Ivy.