frontpage stats
Samsung DVD Burner

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Expend, exhaust, repeat

I am tired. I am tired of trying to figure out every day if I will make it to my next nap without going through a period of discomfort and disgust. Sometimes I just wish I could stop looking at my life through the lens of chronic illness. Before, the issue was always time. I felt like I did not have enough time to do everything I had planned. Now I don't make that many plans so it's not really a huge issue and yet all my sleeping seems to get in the way of doing some of the things I most want to do. Lately I am rarely to sick to clean my house, cook dinner and go to work but by the time I have taken care of the musts, I am exhausted and it is time to sleep again so I won't get really sick. Don't get me wrong, I love sleeping, I just hate watching the time I planned to spend writing or reading constantly being eaten up.

I have been scarce in blogland. I can hardly find the time to write and I almost never have the time to read the way I want to. There are all these ideas of things I want to write and things I want to create but I fear they may have to wait until my next vacation. I think it is that way with just about everyone but before I was sick, I seemed to find the time and energy to do it all. Today I was actually up at 7:30, went to an hour and fifteen minutes of yoga, ran an errand and cleaned my house all by 2:00 pm. The problem is that I started to turn into a pumpkin around 1:00 and by 2:45 I was already taking a nap. I slept for two hours and by then, the afternoon was almost gone. Again, don't get me wrong, the nap was awesome but now it's almost time to leave home for the evening and I never wrote the things I wanted to write today. I did not read anything and I created nothing.

My husband told me that the time changes tonight and all I can think of is how tired I am going to be all week. I have learned not to think too much about this. Such thoughts just make me more tired but still I long for all the energy I used to take for granted. Why is staying out past 9:00 pm a chore?

Today I am grateful that these are the least of my worries. I will not be so self-absorbed as to imagine that I have much to complain of. This is a good life and I value it but still I hunger for something more. I am grateful that I hunger for more. There was a time when I lost all interest or hunger for anything. Now I know that my future is not dimmed, it is just different...

5 comments:

Heather said...

I too can't stay out past 9:00pm. Once a month I do a Girl's Night with my friends. We meet at 7:00 and I leave at 9:00. It's really stinky because so many of them are just getting there when I'm ready to leave. The fun also just seems to be starting by the time I must leave.

I also was really not happy with loosing an hour. I've been so tired lately and then when I heard on Friday we'd need to change our clocks I wasn't sure I would be able to cope. I was suppose to take my son to visit my parents and I cancelled that plan b/c I'm just so tired. I'm a bit jealous you take naps. I really need to learn to do that when my son naps.

Happy sleeping!

Joan said...

Nadja, I really understand what you are talking about. Just know that you are not alone in your frustration about the fatigue. I'm having an incredibly bad bout of it right now myself.

Denver Refashionista said...

Joan and Heather, thanks so much for the support. I keep comparing myself to my old self or to other friends and then I just feel bad. Hearing from others in my position helps put things in perspective.

Blinders Off said...

Nadja,

When fatigue gets to the point, where it is interfering with your life Provigil is the best thing to take to combat fatigue.

I am not an advocate in promoting prescriptions… I do not take Provigil daily because I have a low tolerance, but I will break a 200mg tablet in half and take it as needed. It really helps when the fatigue becomes unbearable.

Anne said...

I don't like the lens of chronic illness either. I prefer to pretend I can do everything like normal people. And it is such a damper on my pretending when I go to bed at 7:00 and wake up twelve hours later.

I always have to take a nap after yoga. Especially if the teacher likes to keep the doors and windows closed to contain the heat.