Books Are Uniquely Portable Magic

I love to read. Always have. When I was little, this meant some friendly teasing about the irony my last name from some kids who were too young to understand irony. As an adult, it’s meant an English degree and a shelf full of “to-reads” I can never quite catch up to before buying even more.

It always baffled me, in fact, that there were people out there who didn’t like to read. What was there to not like about picking up a book and being somewhere else for an hour? Whether it was escaping my own problems through someone else’s or feeling understood, there was nothing like a book.

As an adult, it’s gotten a little harder to find time to read for fun. In college I was constantly reading because I was an English major–– it’s kind of part of the territory–– but now as someone with a full time job, my books to-read were gathering dust on the shelf. I was hitting up the easy reads like memoirs, and doing so at a snail’s pace. And I didn’t feel like myself because of it.

Some favorite Christmas gift selections

Fast forward to early February–– I got sick, really sick, and fast. I went from dancing my face off on my 24th birthday to fainting from pain in the backseat Uber on my way home from work in 2 days flat. Since then, I’ve been in a pretty aggressive flare that has knocked my body (and more importantly, my social life) on its ass. These days, I don’t happy hour–– I try to stay awake through a work day and then have a happy hour with me, my couch, and no fewer than two heating pads.

So that all sounds no fun, right? Except I’ve been conditioned to be ever the optimist, so I was recently thinking about the good things this flare has brought me. I eat healthier. I prioritize my health more. I actually communicate with my doctors. I keep my mental health in check better than ever before. And most fun of all? I’m reading again.

Reading is a phenomenal hobby for anyone with chronic illness. It’s cheap (hey, libraries), it’s easy, and it’s a great way to entertain yourself. I live with a roommate, but a lot of times when I have to stay in on a Friday night thanks to my symptoms, it’s just me and my emotionally withholding cats. And there’s only so much Netflixing a person can feasibly do–– believe me. But books provide an outlet that’s unlike anything else, where I can completely forget about my own circumstances or whatever is bothering me and just engross myself in a good story.

This is my current favorite place to read–– the park across the street from my apartment.

Also, as a person with chronic illness, I spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting for prescriptions, waiting for doctors, waiting for infusions to be done. And I know that we all have the internet in the palm of our hands these days, and I’m as addicted to Twitter as the next girl. But I do think there’s something great about having a book waiting in your bag for moments like that. A good story never fails to calm me down when I’m waiting to get bloodwork done or tackle an annoying new CT scan. I would even go as far as saying “How To Build A Girl” made the barium I had to drink last month taste bearable. It’s true what they say about books being portable magic.

So in terms of silver linings to seemingly unfortunate situations like bad health, I’ll definitely take more time to read. As a smart teacher once told me, “we can only write in words we know.” Reading not only gives me an escape and a way to spend my sick time–– it makes me better able to express myself. And when you’re living life on intermittent bed rest, helping others understand becomes paramount.

So to books I say: thank you for being the most constant and reliable companion I’ve ever had.

On Lena Dunham, Endometriosis, and Feeling Represented.

I had just turned 18 when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Eighteen is a weird age to be alive on the earth at all, but a particularly weird age to be told you now have a disease that is never going away. The first thing I did when I was diagnosed was inhale five and a half White Castles and a milkshake. Anyone who has ever had to do the prep for a colonoscopy knows–– you are damn hungry afterward. The second thing I did after I was diagnosed was google “celebrities with Crohn’s disease.”

“What a weird thing to do!” You’re probably thinking. But I am a good, practicing millennial, and nothing makes me feel more connected to the world around me than knowing someone with a lot of money and Twitter followers also knows my strife. Sadly, my search yielded very little. Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry are not secretly harboring intense digestive issues (at least not according to internet listicles–– the main authority of life).

So for years, I have had little insight into how a highly successful person and a Crohn’s-disease having person might live within the same body. I didn’t know any people in real life with Crohn’s–– just an occasional anecdote from a friend about how their cousin’s soccer coach has colitis, or something. But then Lena Dunham started getting real about endometriosis in a public setting.

Endometriosis and Crohn’s are totally different things, but they’re also similar in a lot of ways. Sufferers of both experience a lot of pain, have to spend a lot of time hanging out at the doctor trying to figure their insides out, etc. When in a particularly bad flare of endometriosis, it can be difficult for women to go about their daily lives.

So when Lena Dunham (whose work I admire immensely in general) posted on Instagram saying she’d be taking some time off from press for her show “Girls” to deal with her worsening endometriosis symptoms, something inside me felt understood. Here was this powerful young woman, who at an insanely young age has written a book, produced and starred in her own show, and started an awesome feminist newsletter–– and even she is not immune to the pull of her body’s illness. Even she has to know when to say “enough is enough” and just rest.

She also used the aforementioned newsletter to post a really eloquent piece on what it means to be young and chronically ill. I had always loved her for her emotional honesty as a writer, and I know many women identify with her stories of being young and figuring things out–– the “Girls” phenomenon. But to read a story of being young and figuring illness out, to me, felt revolutionary.

So while it may sound silly to need to hear “Celebrities! They’re just like us!” It honestly has helped me cope with my own limitations to see Lena speak so openly about hers. It’s a kind and necessary reminder that being sick doesn’t have to mean I can’t do the things I want to do–– and more so, that even the most successful and seemingly together among us are dealing with things behind the scenes, and taking care of yourself often has to come before everything else. People love that phrase “You have as many hours in a day as Beyonce,” but I kind of think that’s bullshit. We need more successful people out there who don’t keep up the front of always having it perfectly together. So thanks, Lena, for going public with your illness. Thanks for pulling back the Wizard of Oz style curtain and reminding sick girls with their laptops like myself that it’s okay if we don’t accomplish as much in a day as Beyonce–– as long as we take care of ourselves.