‘A Letter to the Newly Chronically’

JD Baez, a self-taught visual artist from Brooklyn, blends classical realism with contemporary emotions. Inspired by Baroque masters, his art captures dramatic light and shadow, creating authentic, three-dimensional scenes. JD's work reflects his journey through fatherhood and cultural experiences, exploring human connection and emotional depth. Through his online profile, he shares how art serves as a tool for emotional, mental, and financial empowerment, fostering creative expression.

A Letter to the Newly Chronically

Hey, 

You’re not going to understand this at first. 

You’ll keep asking yourself why your body feels like it’s betraying you, Why the simplest things are so hard, 

Why you’re so tired all the time. 

It’s not going to make sense. 

You’ll think it’s just a phase— 

something you’ll grow out of. 

Spoiler: you don’t. 

You’ll be 13, lying in bed, 

Wondering why it hurts to breathe, 

why your joints feel like they’re grinding into dust. 

You’ll look around and see your friends running, jumping, 

Living. 

And you’ll wonder why you can’t. 

I wish I could say it gets easier. 

But the truth? 

It doesn’t. 

Not really. 

You’ll learn to live with it, though. 

The pain, 

the exhaustion, 

the way your muscles ache like they’ve been carrying the weight of the world. You’ll figure out how to make it through the day 

even when it feels like your body’s collapsing under you. 

I know you want to scream, 

To break something, 

to run until you forget you have a body at all. 

But you can’t. 

And that’s the hardest part, isn’t it? 

The knowing you’re trapped inside something that doesn’t listen to you anymore. 

You’ll lose count of the times someone will say, 

"You look fine,"

like the fact that they can’t see it means it’s not real. 

Like pain has to leave scars to exist. 

You’ll get tired of explaining, 

tired of trying to prove that what you feel is real 

when no one believes you. 

But listen, 

this is important— 

it’s not your fault. 

You’ll blame yourself. 

You’ll wonder if maybe you could’ve done something differently, eaten better, moved more, rested more, 

but none of that changes the fact that sometimes bodies break and there’s nothing you can do but live in the aftermath. 

It’s okay to be angry about that. 

It’s okay to be sad about that. 

You don’t have to be strong all the time. 

Some days you’ll hate your body. 

Some days you’ll hate the world for moving so fast when you can barely keep up. But you’ll also learn to be gentle with yourself, 

to celebrate the small victories, 

like getting out of bed, 

like walking a little farther than you did yesterday. 

I know you’re scared. 

I know you don’t know how to live like this. 

But you will. 

You’ll learn how to make space for the pain, 

how to survive inside a body that doesn’t always feel like home. 

It’s not going to be easy. 

But you’ll get through it. 

You’re stronger than you think, 

even when you feel like you’re falling apart. 

And maybe, one day, 

you’ll find peace in knowing that even broken things can be beautiful.

Aaron McDaniel (He/They) is a writer, reader, painter, nature lover, baker, seamstress, button collector, and much more. However he is also a young person learning to navigate the world while living with chronic pain and fatigue, mental illness and a physical disability.