Just shy of a YEAR to the day that I’ve last posted anything…
other than, WOW! I don’t even know what to say about that. Life got in the
way? I was hell bent on not complaining,
but sharing is not complaining so I’m over it.
Hope you are too. I set out to
share my life in one way or the other – basically – if I feel good then I write
about nothing in general or maybe something that has riled me up or even an old
memory that has struck me and since I’m getting old, I should share it quick before
I forget it! *snicker*
Then, the other side of it is dealing with what I do on a daily basis, but trying to see it for what it is and not to complain, but to share in an open-hearted way; to engage people in conversation and shine a light on some of the struggles in a way that’s not whining or shirking my responsibilities. (Believe me, I’ve heard a lot of reasons why talking about my chronic illness is “this” or “that” according to others, but it’s not about everyone else, it’s about me. Right? I do hear a resounding, “Right!” in response, yes?)
I’m ending the yearlong writing hiatus just after another setback. I just got sick out of nowhere again for the last 3 days. So sick. The gross sick. The kind of sick where if I breathed wrong I felt like I might just die. Ok, a little bit of exaggerating there maybe, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been that bad.
It hit hard, slammed me down flat and I didn’t get back up for 3 days. What IS THAT? I’m trying VERY hard not to fall into that place where I begin to allow this setback to get to me. I’m a fighter. So what that I was just getting back on my feet only to get smacked down like that again? Apparently, I am a badass and that’s why this keeps happening. Right? What else could it be?
I take this and use it to share with others who are feeling like they can’t pull it together after a setback, especially after a brutal flare up of pain, a migraine, or anything that behaves cyclically and gives the illusion that there might just be a good life of manageable pain, only to slam that door closed. The reality is that there is a life fraught with fighting that merry-go-round of “I feel good right now” but the next minute becomes “I’m not feeling good” then “please don’t ask me to give you an explanation of why” because “if I knew, I would not only tell you, I would tell my doctor” and MAYBE “there would be more consistency!” Yeah, ALL of that!
Learning NOT to compare the life I had “BEFORE” to the life “AFTER” or “DURING” is an ongoing process. I just can’t allow myself to go there. Most people who know me now didn’t know me before I got sick. Part of that statement is painful in itself, because I’ve lost friends along the way. This leads to another blog, perhaps – but all in all I couldn’t be more grateful to the support I’ve discovered because of my online connections. I feel in some ways, I’ve shed some negativity and surrounded myself with people who don’t place too many expectations on me because they know me for who I am now and not who I was “BEFORE.” (Expectations equal pressure). There are people who I feel kept waiting for me to “come back” and I just couldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I can NOT.
We all have our aches and pains, going through colds, headaches, etc. Dealing with chronic pain issues sets you in a different category. It’s like having those flu-like symptoms 24/7 and there is no break. If there, were a break, I would be all over that, ALL of the time!
The good thing is that I have it down to a science, or so I like to think. I get sick for a few days and then there are the next few days of recovering to get myself back to what I like to call the “manageable” pain level. I have to regroup, searching for my motivation -- generally it hides under the coffee table or lurks around the TV remote -- and then there’s the process of getting my mindset back to where it was and whatever I was doing before I got sick. This is especially true when the projects are creative, not to mention the exasperating repetition of feeling like I’m digging myself out of a well over and over.
Are there rungs to climb up? Sometimes. Are there hands reaching out to pull me up? Yes. The question is where do I find that energy to do it again and again and again? That’s where I fight. I dig deep. I reach inside and yank out whatever shred of myself I have left to start over. This is where the support system around me is key. I see that I have messages, emails, texts asking about me and that is something right there. It’s small to some people, but knowing that people care and wonder where I am pulls me back and MOVES me to find my spark again.
Then, the other side of it is dealing with what I do on a daily basis, but trying to see it for what it is and not to complain, but to share in an open-hearted way; to engage people in conversation and shine a light on some of the struggles in a way that’s not whining or shirking my responsibilities. (Believe me, I’ve heard a lot of reasons why talking about my chronic illness is “this” or “that” according to others, but it’s not about everyone else, it’s about me. Right? I do hear a resounding, “Right!” in response, yes?)
I’m ending the yearlong writing hiatus just after another setback. I just got sick out of nowhere again for the last 3 days. So sick. The gross sick. The kind of sick where if I breathed wrong I felt like I might just die. Ok, a little bit of exaggerating there maybe, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been that bad.
It hit hard, slammed me down flat and I didn’t get back up for 3 days. What IS THAT? I’m trying VERY hard not to fall into that place where I begin to allow this setback to get to me. I’m a fighter. So what that I was just getting back on my feet only to get smacked down like that again? Apparently, I am a badass and that’s why this keeps happening. Right? What else could it be?
I take this and use it to share with others who are feeling like they can’t pull it together after a setback, especially after a brutal flare up of pain, a migraine, or anything that behaves cyclically and gives the illusion that there might just be a good life of manageable pain, only to slam that door closed. The reality is that there is a life fraught with fighting that merry-go-round of “I feel good right now” but the next minute becomes “I’m not feeling good” then “please don’t ask me to give you an explanation of why” because “if I knew, I would not only tell you, I would tell my doctor” and MAYBE “there would be more consistency!” Yeah, ALL of that!
Learning NOT to compare the life I had “BEFORE” to the life “AFTER” or “DURING” is an ongoing process. I just can’t allow myself to go there. Most people who know me now didn’t know me before I got sick. Part of that statement is painful in itself, because I’ve lost friends along the way. This leads to another blog, perhaps – but all in all I couldn’t be more grateful to the support I’ve discovered because of my online connections. I feel in some ways, I’ve shed some negativity and surrounded myself with people who don’t place too many expectations on me because they know me for who I am now and not who I was “BEFORE.” (Expectations equal pressure). There are people who I feel kept waiting for me to “come back” and I just couldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I can NOT.
We all have our aches and pains, going through colds, headaches, etc. Dealing with chronic pain issues sets you in a different category. It’s like having those flu-like symptoms 24/7 and there is no break. If there, were a break, I would be all over that, ALL of the time!
The good thing is that I have it down to a science, or so I like to think. I get sick for a few days and then there are the next few days of recovering to get myself back to what I like to call the “manageable” pain level. I have to regroup, searching for my motivation -- generally it hides under the coffee table or lurks around the TV remote -- and then there’s the process of getting my mindset back to where it was and whatever I was doing before I got sick. This is especially true when the projects are creative, not to mention the exasperating repetition of feeling like I’m digging myself out of a well over and over.
Are there rungs to climb up? Sometimes. Are there hands reaching out to pull me up? Yes. The question is where do I find that energy to do it again and again and again? That’s where I fight. I dig deep. I reach inside and yank out whatever shred of myself I have left to start over. This is where the support system around me is key. I see that I have messages, emails, texts asking about me and that is something right there. It’s small to some people, but knowing that people care and wonder where I am pulls me back and MOVES me to find my spark again.
Just a little perspective perhaps… A great example of the “circular fight” is settling into our apartment, (not taking into account all of the renovations, repairs, and maintenance issues we’ve had over the last six years. Leave that out, even though that would count as an enormous obstacle for anyone. I’m going to remove that). When we moved in here, ideas flowed as to how this apartment would become our home. After beginning to unpack, I get sick, the boxes get set aside. I fight to get back on my feet, but can’t regroup enough to have a sense of where I wanted things to go, so I begin going through the boxes to decide what I want to keep and what I want to throw away.
We’ve all been at this place, right? Well, I got sick again. Starting and stopping these kinds of
processes are infuriating. There’s really
no polite, sugar-coated way to say it: it just PISSES me off that I don’t have
the consistency in my daily health to keep up the pace I need to get through
making our apartment into a warm, welcoming home; a place where I’m not always
shoving boxes aside when company does come over, and after almost six years,
could we hang something on our walls? (Okay,
so I said I wasn’t going to bring in the maintenance, but the leaks have had
something to do with the “Naked Walls Phenomenon”).
Basically, this is just to bring attention to the repetition
I go through in this fight. What should
be simple and something I might even have taken for granted at one time is
something I’ve been working on for YEARS to get through.
When someone visits or even hears that I'm still in that process of settling in, the random comments are like paper cuts. The critical words that rain down on my self-esteem, because I’m already so hard on myself about not getting this all done, and how flippin’ embarrassing that is, burns like acid. Where I may feel like I’ve gotten a lot done, someone else may not. So, who cares right? Why do I let that bother me? Maybe it’s because it’s something that I consider a small victory, only to have someone I thought would support that victory come in and shatter it.
When someone visits or even hears that I'm still in that process of settling in, the random comments are like paper cuts. The critical words that rain down on my self-esteem, because I’m already so hard on myself about not getting this all done, and how flippin’ embarrassing that is, burns like acid. Where I may feel like I’ve gotten a lot done, someone else may not. So, who cares right? Why do I let that bother me? Maybe it’s because it’s something that I consider a small victory, only to have someone I thought would support that victory come in and shatter it.
Many of you call me “Krazy” - - but I’m considering THAT crazy the good kind. I’m talking about the sanity that I need to keep me from falling into that well and just staying there. Because inevitably I’ll have to do this all over again, it only makes me stronger and I have to keep looking at it that way to KEEP my sanity. THAT is what makes me CRAZY – the kind you all know and love!
So, here we go again. I’m going to try to get back on my feet, post here every day – even if it’s not an essay -- because while I am a writer who has grammar and spelling phobias, I’m NOT perfect. I think that I just need to get over trying to get everything perfect and get my writing out there.
Welcome back! Applause!!
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