Really Tough Week

I've been doing too much, especially driving.  I did some driving last weekend in order to attend a dog event. Then my dad had two appointments this week.  Yesterday I was so sick (M.E. sick) that I was ready for it to end.  I just wanted to die.  Really, how much more suffering must I go through in this life?  It's like everything I do is punished, whether that's stuff I really want to do, or just life errands stuff.

I woke up today not quite as weak but still feeling horrible already (sometimes I get a window in the morning).  Since the beginning of M.E., when I'm sick or crashed it feels like there's an infection somewhere deep in my chest, I take a deep breath and it hurts/aches.  Every cell in my body is tapped out and poisoned. It's really similar to having influenza (the weakness and icky part) but M.E. (as I experience it) has a flavour all of it's own. I don't know how much more of this I can take?

For the next 6 months I will be teaching again and today that feels like the worst decision in the world.  On the other hand, in some ways I am very much looking forward to it (hopefully I can keep my brain healthy enough to manage it).

I work completely from bed for a few hours a day teaching online courses (this time a 6 week summer intensive and a fall 12 week).  The summer intensive is all ready to go and will be a whirlwind no doubt.  I know in the past it's occasionally meant some 6 hour days and in order to spread out my hours, usually no days off for the whole period (really 8 weeks work with the marking). The fall course is right up my alley (it's in my field of study) but I've only taught it one time and I don't see where/when I will do anything to adapt and update it given I'm working in the summer.

Right now I have a headache and am dizzy/light headed so feeling thankful I have most the week still to recover from this crash/relapse. Illness is really dragging me down lately, I feel so isolated from the rest of the world, I feel so alone trying to manage life while feeling so horrid. Yesterday I almost collapsed twice my legs were so weak. If I had, I would have been alone.

A Poem

So yesterday June 16th was my 16th sickaversary.  While I know rationally that I was once well (or lived in a relatively healthy body),  I can't really remember what it's like to feel well, not to feel sick.

Since I don't have much to say these days, here's a poem we used to use as a reading in wilderness courses. It popped into my head recently:

The Invitation

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.  I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.