Hobbies as Anchors

The losses can easily add up with chronic illness. Doctor appointments stack up, symptoms hijack your attention, and suddenly your identity becomes a list of lab results. Hobbies push back against that. They give you something useless in the best possible way. Painting badly, learning guitar slowly, tending a small garden that may or may not cooperate, these things remind you that you are more than a diagnosis. You are a person who makes things, attempts things, enjoys things. A decade of living with a primary immune disorder has resulted in losses of more physically strenuous hobbies, but other more creative pursuits have emerged. When your body feels unreliable, a hobby becomes a small territory you can still choose and this is the free will we are seeking. It does not fix the illness, the pain, or the sleepless night, but it still matters for the waking hours of the day. It builds a corner of your life that belongs to you, a piece of the garden of life for you to tend to. That corner matters. It is proof that even inside limits, you are still capable of caring about something that is not your symptoms, and that act of caring is a form of power and we are always seeking more agency in this storm. Reach out if you are struggling to find this agency in your life.

Dr. Jeffrey Bone