Looks Like a Busy Summer Ahead

First, the lilacs are out and the the air is full of their aroma.  Here's a photo from last year when the crab apple and lilacs bloomed at the same time.  This year, the lilacs came later maybe because it's been a cool June.

I have done three interviews for my research (PhD) recently.  Two on Skype, and one over the phone. For those who read this and have M.E., I'm sure you can understand how this could be exhausting. They really drain me even though I'm not doing much of the talking.

On the other hand, I think often about Laura Hillenbrand who has M.E. and is also mostly home bound.  As well, she suffers from periods of severe vertigo.  And yet she has written two best selling books - "Sea Biscuit" and "Unbroken" and researched them all from bed. While it takes her years and she sacrifices other 'living' to do it, it is pretty amazing.

I think if I were to do a PhD, I couldn't have come up with a much better project (interviews by phone). So really, I am going to (as best I can) 'suck up' the suffering they cause post-interview for the fact that come September, I will have 12-15 interviews recorded that will provide the basis for my study.

I dearly wish I still had some medical leave left, however, because I would preemptively plan to be off this fall.  On top of the research, I have my parents visiting next week, some travel planned this summer and just thinking about everything I am attempting with this sick body is exhausting me.

Speaking of exhausting, I recently had to crawl under my bed to look through some boxes I have stored there.  I realized that there are a lot of boxes in this house that could really use some purging.

Even worse, it brought home how many times a week I attempt to do something seemingly small and run head first into my limitations.  For example, I tried to pull a box out from under the bed and just being on my knees made me super dizzy with a semi black-out standing back up.  I also got the very weak arm problem trying to get out the boxes.  Then, a couple hours later, I got the internal muscle tremor/buzzing that seems to be a post-reaction to anything that requires strength.

So that's the physical post-effort effect, then the mental/emotional one comes sweeping in.  "I am so useless, why can't I manage to do anything, why am I so sick?" and feelings of being overwhelmed "I have so many boxes I should go through, there is so much should do, why can't I manage to do anything useful?".  I know some of these feelings are ones both the healthy and unhealthy get.  I seem to have a motor that's hard to shut down even when there are all kinds of signals that I should, and the repercussions are so bad that sometimes I want to die.

One thing I've been trying to do lately is be kinder to myself.  If I'm having a decent day I put 'crashing' out of my mind and tell myself "it's not so bad, why are you living off social assistance?  You need to tough it out and do more, think about working." Then a day later when I'm horribly fluey and crashed, "why did you do too much, can't you have learned by now that you are sick?" I'm trying to change those to "remember to take it easy even on these 'good days'.  It's ok to enjoy laying in the sun, it's ok to spend the day in bed, to rest and read on a 'good' day".  "You are still an OK person, even sick".  "you are still an OK person, it's not your fault you don't work".  It's really hard to change those patterns, though.

On July 3rd I hang my little art show, and to be honest, I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about that as well.  The internal voice keeps saying "my art is just not good enough to show".  I realize it is a very low-key show in a basement art-store gallery.  It's a chance for the art store's clientele to show - amateurs like me.  But I'm finding the whole thing embarrassing.  I in no way regret doing art, it's one thing that makes me happy, I can manage it in small doses and it distracts me from being ill.  On the other hand, I feel as if the longer I am sick, the more I am plagued by self-doubt.  I realize this is no way to go through life, especially when I have the extra burden of being so ill.

Speaking of art, this is my most recent print.  It involved three carvings and many drafts if you can believe it.  While it is very very simple, I do like the colours and feeling of misty twilight it portrays.  It's called "wolves at night".  Fitting eh?