You know some mornings (happily rare for me!) when you wake up and you know that it’s really not going to be a brilliant idea to get up? Well today is one of those days for me!
My eyes are so tired they want to stay closed, my thoughts are like mush, my body really heavy. I get the feeling I’m being told to do nothing today, which goes against my plans written in my day book!! But one thing I have learnt is to listen to my body and to distinguish between procrastination tiredness and genuine, body-healing tiredness.
I have a friend who suffers from ME and she described to me how she feels most days. It sounds a lot like I feel today, but for me it’s an occasional day off. For her it is a daily event. I know that if I listen to my body I will probably wake up tomorrow feeling brilliant and full of energy. She suspects that tomorrow she will wake up feeling exactly the same as she does today. Sometimes it is all she can do to lift her head from the pillow and drink some water! As for getting out to go to the bathroom, forget it! My little glimpse of a fraction of what she has to deal with is helping me to understand how debilitating illnesses such as ME are.
For me, I shall wash the samples I finished at 11 pm last night (probably why I’m so cream-crackered today!) and do some research reading, or read through some of the magazines that I haven’t looked at yet…. If I fall asleep, so be it. It will be an enforced relaxation day which I shall use in as constructive a way as my brain will let me.
For her, it will be another long, long day of watching the clock ticking out the seconds of her life whilst she is unable to do the simplest thing, and having to rely on her family looking after her. She cries lots because tears can roll down her face without energy, and she feels so guilty because she has people who need her to look after them, not the other way around. She has lost her job, her self-respect, and her dignity, and there is technically nothing physically or mentally ‘wrong’ with her. That, she says, is the hardest thing to deal with. People can see nothing wrong, and yet she is unable to move her body or think straight. Sooner or later her family will run out of patience, and she is dreading that day.
So when you have a day which allows you an insight into another person’s life, spare a thought about how it must be to find yourself in that situation. It makes me appreciate the difficulties she and her family face on a daily basis, and at the same time reminds me to be thankful that usually I am so full of energy and direction and that a lazy day for me today will allow me to bounce back tomorrow.