Resitting and Resetting

Some thoughts on where I’m at, at the end of 2025 #WordyAndWheelyWednesdays

Hullo my lovely readers

A content note for discussion of disability, impairment and neurodivergence, bereavement and grief (and treatment for/support with all of these)

This letter, the last #WordyAndWheelyWednesdays of 2025, is far from a traditional “Year in Review”.

It has no analysis of personal or professional triumphs.

Nor does it feature lists: of things I’ve read, watched, eaten or drunk; or of places I’ve been.

Instead it holds thoughts on striking what is, in many ways, a tricky balance.

A balance between some of the highest highs I’ve had in decades, not to mention years (most notably the changes to my wheelchair seating system, which is why I chose the “resitting” element of this letter’s title) and the lowest lows (several connected to grief, both following recent bereavements and in response to historical ones – and others connected to my physical health).

It’s a balance that, if I’m really (wheely!) honest (both with myself and with you), isn’t strictly specific to this year. Because it’s one I’ve navigated in every year of my life, for a whole range of reasons, whilst existing as a queer, trans, disabled and (multiply) neurodivergent person who requires significant support to live.

What is specific to this year (or, more accurately, to the past just over thirteen months – since November 2024 – which was, either ironically or aptly or both, exactly the same time as I started this newsletter) is how acute that balance has felt.

Instead of comparatively chronic.

How present it has been.

How the lows have jarred more uncomfortably with the highs, and vice versa, than in a very long time indeed.

How the cumulative effect of everything has caught up with me: neurologically, physiologically, psychologically.

I did have some sense of the psychological parts back in last November. And possibly some of the physiological as well, given that I know bodies hold trauma.

But I couldn’t have predicted how everything would coalesce, in often contradictory ways (like my noise sensitivity preventing regular dictation sessions when my shoulder injury reappeared with a vengeance in the spring, only to stick stubbornly around since then and complicate, amongst many other tasks, extensive typing).

And I also couldn’t have predicted, or even actually pinpointed, how much of a toll that would all take.

How much it has taken.

Because I was too overwhelmed by dealing with the practicalities: the symptoms, the logistics, the feelings (physical and emotional).

Then, fifteen days ago, I got long-awaited adjustments to my wheelchair; the prospect of which was only even vaguely plausible thanks to Botox this summer. I’ve written about some of the wildness of the time since then, and another balance, of the physical positives with the neurological niggles that have arisen as a result of the adjustments.

And, today, I want to share in writing (in typing) the shift for which I’m most unreservedly grateful in a practical sense: with the different, dynamic support of my pelvis and spine, my shoulder injury seems to have steadily calmed down since the changes – and continues to do so.

That’s what’s letting me type these longer letters.

(And other, long overdue, professional projects.)

But I also want to share the thing I’m most personally grateful for, even though it’s been engulfing:

Turns out I actually have capacity to feel things.

More explicitly emotions.

Anxiety and grief and joy and sadness and all the layers between them that I barely knew existed (except theoretically), after what I now comprehend has been nearly two decades of distance.

Of numbness.

Sure, I’ve been happy. And I’ve been anxious (clinically so). And I’ve been sad (also clinically so).

But I had no idea I could be so sad. Or so anxious. Or so happy.

And my whole understanding of how I’ve been functioning (or, frankly, haven’t been) has required fundamentally reframing.

So today, at the end of 2025, I’ve not been reviewing.

Instead, aided by yet another form of balance – beautiful sunshine and blue skies contrasting very chilly air temperature – and whilst wearing a pair of my beloved dungarees comfortably for the first time in more months than I care to remember, I’ve been resitting and resetting.

(Or at least attempting to.)

And I’m going to continue that practice as we shift and drift into 2026 (!).

[Image description: A close up photo of Jessi (a white person with short brown hair and brown eyes - though their eyes are hidden behind sunglasses) sitting in their powered wheelchair in a bright, sunny garden with grass, trees and the sea behind them as they grin at the camera. They are bundled up in a jacket, hat and gloves, and they are also wearing ear defenders. /End image description]

I hope you can find some form of that for yourselves.

Thank you so much for reading (both this letter and this year!), take care of yourselves and one another whatever you might be doing, and love and solidarity until next time,

Jx