Thinking Temporally with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Time is a construct. It is malleable and flexible and at the same time, very exacting and rigid.

That’s been made ever more clear by having rheumatoid arthritis because, as I and many other community members have mentioned, when you have a chronic illness, you don’t have the same amount of time that you used to have before being diagnosed (assuming that you weren’t born with your chronic illness). The fatigue zaps your energy and before you know it, you start wondering where the rest of the day went.

I feel that having rheumatoid arthritis colors and mediates my relationship with time, in thinking about how to get everything done with work, school, and personal time.

The "flexibility" of time

The way that I think about time has definitely evolved as I’ve aged and as my responsibilities have grown. Going back to grad school while working full time has also complicated that, but it provides me with an artistic outlet that helps me ease the crunch of working full time.

This is what I mean by the flexibility of time: even though I’ve added something to my schedule that takes up a considerate amount of time, grad school has drastically altered my perception of each day and of the hours I have to work and be active. RA mediates that by swooping into my body and slashing the number of hours I have to give, which causes a rearranging of priorities in the things that I need to get done.

RA has robbed me of my time

More than that, time itself is connected deeply with our own conceptions of memory. The time that I had before being diagnosed, though resonating quite strongly at times with a nostalgic feeling, is now inaccessible; I can’t have that time back. The only time I do have access to is right now, the present, and I’m not so sure that I like that understanding. What would it mean to have access to all the time I need? To all of the time that I didn’t even have to begin with?

Hypotheticals can be dangerous, for sure. They give us a glimpse into a reality that isn't real. Abstractly, it’s beautiful to consider and think about. There’s something alluring about the time inherent in change that is continually out of reach. It’s also a useful thought process to identify what takes up most of your time and to, as I mention above, re-prioritize your time to what you need and want out of life.

Looking at the clock through an RA perspective

Which leads me to consider: what does time look like under the purview of a chronic illness? I don’t think there’s one monolithic answer. Everyone has a different understanding and context that they are operating with and under. It will depend on how you think about time to being with and also on what you spend your time on.

For me, I think about time as something intangible that presents itself tangibly in the tasks, projects, and ideas that I need, have to get out of myself. I fear that if I had all the time in the world, I wouldn’t get anything done. Sometimes these limitations can be paradoxically freeing, even though they feel quite the opposite. I think what I’m trying to say is that the reduction of time caused by having RA has really been liberating in forcing me to see how mutable and changing the world is. I can make it what I want it to be, structuring myself accordingly.