Spoonie

I made some bracelets for myself. I made 150 bracelets for others and towards the end of making them I realized I hadn’t made any for myself. So I made 4 bracelets for myself. One that is with a purple peace symbol, a series of beads to make a rainbow, then one that says,  “feral” as that is one of my favorite words this year, and then one that says, “spoonie.”

I live with chronic pain and so use the Spoon theory often to explain my energy levels. To summarize, basically every day you get so much energy or spoons when you start your day. Someone who doesn’t have chronic pain can take a shower and maybe not even use one spoon, but someone with chronic pain can use almost all the spoons they woke up with that morning. Each step, movement to wash my hair, to towel dry off cost me energy/spoons.

A common nickname for people that use the spoon theory is called being a spoonie.

A nice happenstance of being a spoonie is that Michaela’s nickname was Spoon. Yesterday someone pointed that out to me while wearing that bracelet. It wasn’t my reasoning for making the bracelet. I made it because I am advocating for myself with doctors so use the spoon theory often to describe my energy levels doing mundane everyday tasks like taking a shower or unloading the dishwasher. It has a major part of my life lately - advocating for myself with medical professionals. So it made me think of it only in the spoon theory way.

Later when it was pointed out that it could represent Michaela, I was happy about that. I am surprised it didn’t upset me that it wasn’t my main reason for making the bracelet. As I still try to center my life around this person I love so very much even though she isn’t here with me.

It might upset me someday, but for today I am taking it as a win that it made me happy to have a bracelet that says, “spoonie” - like I am the number one fan of my Michaela also known as Spoon. Definitely number one fan. Always and forever.