Where to live

a ramble on getting from there to here

They’re a temptation to recap periods of silence, to elaborate on an absence. With chronic illness those absences happen frequently. It takes a single bad day to drop you on your back, in a nasty brain fog. The pressure to explain yourself can lead to freezing in place, unwilling to just start where you left off.

Mix that with other things like a learning disability and processing disorder and it’s a recipe to not pick up a pen for weeks. The same problem overlaps onto social media. Typing up new words on the same thing just because different platform is exhausting.

Post viral illness is cumulative and progressive. I’m at what’s considered moderate level illness. That means a lot of time on my back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. This seems like a new thing to a lot of people. It’s not. I was just assuming it was depression or anxiety or overwhelm or, or, or.

Nope. Progressive illness. Illness that doesn’t have real treatment other than try not to over exert yourself, and manage some, not all of the symptoms. Illness that has real potential to leave me permanently disabled.

That’s a daunting thought. The most insidious symptom for me is the post exertional malaise. Trying to exercise will make you sicker if you miscalculate things by a few heartbeats. The standard “build stamina by constantly increasing effort” does the opposite here. Long COVID keeps your body from using oxygen as effectively. Again, there is no agreed on fix. This is very new territory. What it means in practical terms is that fit and active people move to completely sedentary lifestyles.

And I gotta tell ya, it sucks. Every chore has to get weighed against pet care, against fun rest (reading a book), out of the house work, and work from bed. It’s a heck of a balancing act.

I’m tired today, and due to nasty weather in Austin this week I’ve lost work hours. Again, I can look backward and spend energy trying to explain why. Or I can just take a breath and do what I can today.

Acknowledge the past, don’t live there. Plan for the future as you can, but remember you can’t live in something that hasn’t happened yet.

Live today, in the moment. Do what you can, and be as present as possible. Live now.