What Good Days Look Like

Most writing about disabled life focuses on what’s hard. The barriers, the fights, the fatigue, the grief. That writing matters. I’ve written plenty of it myself. But it’s not the whole story. Good days happen too, and they don’t get written about enough. Not the inspirational “overcoming adversity” kind. Just the honest kind, where things work and you notice.

The last two days have been like that. Here’s what they looked like.

The Work That Worked #

I published three essays. “My Brain Is Broken” is about the gap between capability and consistency — the initiation barrier, the word-finding failures, the feeling that your own mind is working against you. “Valedictorian, Interrupted” is about losing valedictorian status, scholarships, and a BrailleNote two weeks before high school graduation, and a teacher who made it feel like my fault. “Inaccessible to the People They’re Trying to Reach” is about Christian ministries for the chronically ill that build events and platforms excluding the very people they exist to serve.

Three essays, three different angles on disability, all published in one day. That’s not normal for me. Some days I can’t write a sentence. But on Wednesday the words were there, and the CI pipeline cooperated, and the codespell hook only flagged things I could fix in thirty seconds. Everything pushed. Everything built. Everything went live.

I also had a phone call with a GI dietician. Phone calls are hard for me. I have speech disfluency and phone anxiety, and I usually need a script and a prep sheet and someone to talk me through it beforehand. This call went well. The dietician understood why I need a standing order for liquid nutrition. She had questions for the nursing home about why I don’t already have one. She’s going to call them directly. I didn’t have to fight. I just had to show up.

Later, I called Social Security to update my direct deposit. One call, one goal, done in under fifteen minutes. The money will go to the right account now. That’s the kind of administrative task that can eat an entire day when you’re disabled and low-income. On Thursday it didn’t.

The Body That Cooperated (Mostly) #

A nurse came to draw blood for labs while I was drinking my breakfast. He had to stick me twice. They took quite a bit. The fatigue wave that followed was real, and I spent most of the day dozing through it.

But here’s the thing: the blood draw happened, the labs got done, and the fatigue wave passed. I didn’t crash for three days. I didn’t have to cancel everything. I rested, and then I got back up. For someone with chronic fatigue, that’s a win. Not the kind anyone gives you a trophy for. Just the kind where your body lets you keep going.

The Games That Worked #

I played two MUDs over these two days. Erion, my medieval fantasy game, where I’m a Spark Mage following the goddess of change. And NukeFire, a post-apocalyptic wasteland where I’m a Slinger named Liora killing junker robots in a scrapyard.

Both games are accessible. Not “technically accessible because they’re text-based.” Actually playable. Screen reader modes, GPS navigation, equipment comparison, crafting systems that store your materials between sessions. I leveled Liora from 15 to 40 in about twelve hours of real time across several sessions. That’s not grinding. That’s enjoying a game that was built with players like me in mind.

I wrote a review of NukeFire and published it. That’s my fifth gaming article. Two years ago I couldn’t find a single MUD I could actually play. Now I have two, and I’m writing about what makes them work.

The Faith That Lined Up #

My Bible reading on Wednesday was Psalm 61: “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” The devotional was about the Canaanite woman who wouldn’t stop asking Jesus for help even when he tested her faith. I had Danny Gokey’s “Finish Strong” in my head all morning: “Our God is with us in the trenches.”

None of that was planned. I didn’t curate a spiritual experience. I just did my reading, and the pieces lined up in a way that felt less like coincidence and more like someone paying attention.

The Roommate I Was Afraid Of #

They moved a new roommate into my room. I was terrified. I have Non-24 sleep-wake disorder, chronic fatigue, and a screen reader that talks at all hours. I couldn’t imagine anyone putting up with that. My brain went straight to the worst case: someone annoyed by my hours, frustrated by the speech output, another TSBVI situation where sharing space meant being punished for being disabled.

She’s a young woman whose mom died. Her family brought her here because they couldn’t care for her. She’s a gamer. She doesn’t have a sleep schedule either. The staff said they thought it might be good for me.

I don’t know yet if it will work. It’s been one day. But the thing I was most afraid of — “how will anyone put up with my schedule?” — might actually be the thing that makes this possible. She’s awake at odd hours too. My screen reader at 3 AM might not be an annoyance. It might just be the room at 3 AM.

I’m not writing the happy ending yet. I’m writing the part where I was wrong about what was possible.

What This Adds Up To #

Three essays published. A dietician call that went well. A Social Security call that took fifteen minutes. Labs done. Two MUDs played. A game review written. Bible reading that lined up. A roommate who might actually work.

That’s not a miracle. It’s not inspiration. It’s just a couple of days where the systems cooperated, my body gave me enough to work with, and the things I built — the writing practice, the advocacy skills, the game knowledge, the call scripts — paid off.

Disabled life includes days like this. They don’t make the hard days less real. They don’t mean I’m “overcoming” anything. They just mean that sometimes, for reasons I can’t always predict or control, things work. And when they do, it’s worth noticing.