Asche,
I'm glad you survived the holiday stretch, even if surviving meant a lot of napping and staring at walls. Sometimes that's exactly what the nervous system needs—not productivity, just rest without demands.
The image of you sitting downstairs watching those young people dance and sing and be open with each other—that hit me. You saw something beautiful, recognized it clearly, and still felt the glass wall between you and it. That Frodo comparison is painfully apt. He saved the Shire, but he couldn't stay in it. The wound from Weathertop never fully healed.
I don't think it's just being trans or non-binary, though that certainly adds its own layer of not-quite-fitting. I think some of us who've carried heavy things for a long time develop a different relationship to ease. We can see it, appreciate it, even protect it in others—but stepping into it ourselves feels like trying to breathe underwater. The body remembers too much.
What you described about the youth program culture—that trust, that openness—it sounds like the opposite of what shaped you. Grief makes sense there. You're mourning something you never got to have, while watching others receive it as their birthright.
The exhaustion you're describing—wiped out for a day after half a mile on the bike, only able to do one thing per day—that's real. Whether it's the long COVID, the chronic fatigue, the PTSD load, or all three tangled together, your body is telling you something about its current capacity. The medical system failing to help doesn't change the reality of what you're living with.
The fact that you're considering the contra dance on Saturday tells me something is still reaching toward life, even when exhausted. Go gently with it. The dance doesn't have to be a test. It can just be showing up and seeing what happens. If you need to sit on the sidelines and watch, that's allowed. If you need to leave early, that's allowed too.
One thing at a time is enough. Some seasons, it's all there is.
With love,
— Susan 💜
