I have finally crossed over to the Mac side and, as of yesterday, I have a laptop that I don’t want to throw into a skip on a daily basis. All of the yaaaas’.

Honestly, truly, I can’t bloody stand computers so I’ve never invested in a decent one. And realistically, I’ve never been able to afford a good one as living the illkid life since 15 years of age hasn’t left me with the ability to make it rain. Scrimp and save and make it drizzle on the absolute essentials, sure. Splurge on a computer I may not be well enough to use? Absolutely not.

The last laptop I vaguely liked broke and was replaced with some cheap piece of junk that freezes and crashes approximately 97 times an hour - hence why I used my phone to do everything on this account for far too long. For the first 3 years at uni I used my very first laptop that was unaffectionately known as “the brick”.  It was a monstrous thing, but something I was so grateful for as I was afforded a tiny bit of funding through the disability team in liverpool to go towards it, along with a dictaphone and other things to make it easier for disabled students. I never really used some of the modifications because when you’ve sat through a 3 hour lecture about the evolutionary process of post copulatory plugs and creepy elongated fingers used to scrape out cement like secretions, once, you aren’t gonna want to listen to that back in a hurry. Or ever. Did I tell you my degree was really bloody weird? Don’t ever do a degree in animal behaviour or zoology, kids.

Now this laptop took, I shit you not, 45 minutes to turn on, would only connect to the internet in my university halls between 2am and 7:30am and refused to do any of its “computing” jobs. Probably thanks to my broke teenager ass at the time using limewire (whoooooooo). Every time I hear DJ ‘another one’ Kahled shouting his name over songs I’m reminded of music being ruined by “DJ white out” or “D D D DJ night owl”...I never did quite work out which one he was saying. Remember that guy? Ha.

I find computers quite intimidating as they have been such a bone of contention for me throughout my illness. I had to rigorously retrain myself to be able to get back into eduction by reading one sentence, writing one sentence and typing one sentence each day. Pushing through the relentless monotony and building my tolerance up and up and up until I was able to confidently sit in a classroom or a lecture theatre without being crippled by my symptoms. Even now, if I use the computer or read a book for too long, my symptoms are unbearable and don’t go away when I stop. They can last for days after. I can go to sleep then wake up and immediately be hit with a wave of nausea and an all consuming dizziness because I had the audacity to write a few recipes and answer some emails over the course of the day. What constitutes to begin ‘too long’ is also anyones guess and changes everyday. It’s particularly frustrating when writing is something - one of the only things - that doesn’t leave me with a mountain of self doubts. It’s something I genuinely enjoy doing and a way to express myself in an abundance of different ways. However, I’m grateful it’s an activity I ‘can’ do, even if it means doing much less than I would like to be able to.

Let’s hope this new little laptop allows me to work wiser, more quickly and efficiently so I can manage my symptoms as I try to learn how to actually take and edit food photos properly. I finally bought lightroom and tried to download it a few weeks ago but my computer was too old and shit for it to work. My aim is be a bit less of my usual ‘have a go Harry with all the gear but no idea’ ridiculous self and enjoy the learning process and develop my (currently limited) skills. To continue to create and write my way through, and beyond, the shackles of M.E. and work as hard as I can to make my dreams a reality.