Zebra Seeking Spoons

Chronic illness does not only take from the body.

It takes from the spaces between people.

It is the empty chair at the gathering,
the text left unanswered because exhaustion won,
the invitation declined for the tenth time,
the friendship slowly fading beneath the weight
of “maybe next time.”

It is standing at the edge of the world,
watching life unfold through a window,
hearing laughter from a room
your body cannot enter.

I have mourned more than health.

I have mourned shared dinners,
inside jokes,
spontaneous road trips,
long conversations that stretched past midnight,
the simple comfort of being expected somewhere.

Illness teaches a strange kind of loneliness.

You can be surrounded by people
and still feel oceans away.

You can be deeply loved
and still ache for the version of connection
that pain, fatigue, and limitations
have stolen from your hands.

Sometimes belonging feels like a country
I once lived in
but no longer have a map to reach.

I watch others move so easily
between gatherings and celebrations,
forming memories I was never there to make.

And some days,
that grief settles heavily in my chest—
not because I want a different life,
but because I miss being part
of the one still moving around me.

Yet even here,
in the quiet places illness has left behind,
I have learned something about belonging.

It is not measured by how many rooms I enter,
how many plans I keep,
or how often I can show up.

It is found in the people
who save me a seat anyway.

The ones who text again.
Who understand “I can’t” is not “I don’t care.”
Who sit beside me in the silence
without asking me to become someone stronger,
healthier,
or less complicated.

They remind me that belonging
is not earned through productivity
or presence.

It is given through love.

And though illness has taken many things,
and though some losses still break my heart,

there are hands that continue to reach for mine,
voices that still call my name,
and places where my weary soul
is welcomed exactly as it is.

Perhaps that is what belonging truly means:

not never being left behind,

but being loved enough
that someone keeps looking back
to make sure you are still part of the journey.