Sunday, May 15, 2011

Illness ponderings...

My Temporarily Able Bodied(TAB)housemate, annoys me immensely. She's so smart, but would rather be lazy and do nothing except work for me (because it provides housing, utilities, and money for whatever else she spends it on) and play video games.

I struggle daily, hourly, minute wise to be productive. I struggle against catching a cold that saps my energies (as I have know). I spend approximately 90% of the extra income I receive on making the world better, on getting myself to and from various actions and events.

I spend a lot of my time helping her transition from male to female. We have a project and I am writing poetry about that in the hope that someone will grant us funds to enable her to go through surgery. In truth, I wonder if being here for her and helping her with things is in fact doing the opposite of supporting her. If she might, in fact, become more functional if I stopped providing her shelter and made function on her own.

She's a good employee and a good friend. I'd miss her. She'd be mad at me for a good long while, I know. But perhaps me and too many people in her life have acted like Kate Keller (Helen Keller's mother) rather than Annie Sullivan (Helen's Keller's teacher)who insisted that the child reach for things rather than simply be given them as a matter of course. By using using her services and providing housing/most basic needs, am I being fair to her?

This is what I am pondering as I am sick.