Goddessing: A Goddess / Pagan Blog

Yesterday was a day that might have been a big day for me, or a little day. I suppose it depends on perspective, but I don't have enough yet to make the call.

I went on short-term disability in November, 1996; long-term disability some time in 1997. In 1998 we remodeled this house and moved into it; the moving-in process took several years, really. Everyone who lives without an exalted Virgo placement in her/his chart knows what I mean. It takes awhile to figure out the best, most comfy, most logical/useful place to put things. Then add to that the slowness of unpacking due to disability, and the merging of two households' worth of a whole bunch of everything, which is what happens when two women in their forties decide to make a home together -- each with entire housefuls of furniture and dishware and books, each trailing clouds of craft supplies and inherited family photos and furniture and tchachkis and all manner of things that may not fit but that carry so much emotion and memory that you can't let go of them, even when you can't use them and have precious little space for storing them.

So speed forward to 2002, when I make the first steps toward developing a home-based business, and then turn your dial to 2003, when I replace the original business idea with something more exciting, more fulfilling, and more relevant to the publications work I did for 25 years: web design.

I've been growing a web design business organically, and loving it, for two years. In the same time, I've been jumping through the various hoops in my state's Vocational Rehab Department to get necessary ergonomic accommodations to be able to do this work. I have systemic fibromyalgia and arthritis (brought on by the fibro), and a few structural problems brought on by a whiplash in my thirties, being hit by a car in my 20s, landing on the pavement in my 10s when the girth pulled the belly hairs of my horse and sent him bucking and pitching from the pain ... and various other such episodes.

In any case, while I've loved working with creative folks, and doing creative work, and learning, learning, learning many things web, neither I nor the Assistive Technology folks have been successful at finding/building the right combination of ergonomic accommodations for me. Doing this work has been hard on my body. I won't even try to describe how. It would take a lot of words, several paragraphs, to explain it all and at the end of that, unless you've been here, it just wouldn't make much sense. Suffice it to say that my bad knee is worse, my back and neck are in worse shape than they were, and the last straw, I think, is the case of tendonitis in my left shoulder, very painful and limiting, which developed when I did my last big web job.

So yesterday I had an appointment with my Voc Rehab counselor and we decided to close my case, with an option to re-apply for services in the future if things change, and I've recovered from the knee/back/neck/shoulder etc. problems that have accumulated in the last two years, and more options for ergonomic workstations that might work for me have come into the market.

I'll keep the clients I have now, many of whom I'm moving to more independence by installing Content Management Systems that allow them to do some of their own site maintenance/updating. I'll take on some new clients as they find me by word-of-mouth, but as of yesterday's decision, I'll halt marketing efforts to grow my business.

It's a relief to be out of the hoop-jumping for the Voc Rehab Department (a whole bunch of research and paperwork, mainly), and there's a sense of relief in my body knowing there will be fewer stints of long hours/days at the computer getting a new site designed and launched and marketed.

In addition to the physical relief, there's also an unexpected feeling of a huge psychic burden lifted. But there's also sadness, and a sense of loss. Before fibro slowed me down, I was a highly productive person, a major do-er, basically satisfied professionally and engaged with volunteer work, creative activities, a big social life, and a spiritual path that was turning into avocation.

It's a much smaller life I live now, in terms of my culture's productivity and social benchmarks. And as for yesterday's decision and how that affects my life, it's hard to say now whether that decision will make way for bigger dreams (shall I get my mini-kiln fixed and start doing small-scale sculpture again? can I?) or smaller dreams (shall I spend my days moving from chair to bed to chair, reading more, doing less?).

"Big Man the Lantern, Small Man the Tallow-stick." Big or small, there's light in either, blessed light.

Permalink posted by Sage -- 9:58 AM.

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