Beneath a Sickly Surface

[this was written on March 21 and posted on my other blog, www.snatchlings.blogspot.com]

I have a rare opportunity. To be a voice for the sick. Because suddenly I am one, and I want someone to tell my friends for me...

That it has nothing to do with them when I'm irritable and impatient. It's the sickness talking. Or, all my energy is required just to sit up or walk or keep pecking away at my computer til 5:00 and I can crash on my couch, having made it through another day, and I don't have anything left for being nice. Or, I'm actually irritable and impatient with the monster inside that's sucking the life out of me, but somehow it gets taken out on those around me. Or, my world has shrunk so small to how I'm feeling right now and how to take care of myself, that I can't help but be petty.

That I really do feel bad most of the time. When you have the flu, you can't remember what it feels like to have the strength and joy to run around and play outside. When you get better, you can't remember how you felt when you were sick. To understand me, consider that I have the flu all the time, and try to remember what it felt like. You could barely walk from your bed to the bathroom, and all you wanted was to get better (and your mommy).

That sometimes I want someone to ask how I'm feeling, and sometimes I want to be left alone. And I'm sorry if you tried doing one when I wanted the other.

That I hate it that I can't be myself. I'm just sick enough to have lost my vivacity, but not enough not to be painfully aware of its loss. I know you miss me, and I miss me too, which makes it even harder. It's like an out of body experience when I see a person on the sidelines, for example, and *I* know that I would reach out to that person and include him in the conversation but I simply don't have the strength to do it. It's a constant letting go. A constant prioritizing, where stretching my strength too far now will come back to haunt me later (and everyone else). A constant self-preservation. Constant sacrifice. Constant little deaths. How do I keep from becoming self-consumed?

That "showing up" is a victory for me, and sometimes it's all I can offer. The door to the office, the church, the friends' house is the finish line. On a tough day, anything extra is icing.

That I never know what to say to "how are you?" Do they really want to know how I feel right now? Do I really want to explain it? Will it just be a downer and make me feel worse for being negative? It'll probably be awkward in the end, and force me to put on a happy face to rescue the conversation anyway, so maybe it's easier for everyone if I just keep the happy face on from the start. After all, I am happy, I'm just not "fine."

That despair is always lurking. Around every failure of my body or mind. I'm getting used to depending on other people, something I've never been good at. But only to a point. I've always had little patience with my own limitations, which is what landed me with adrenal fatigue* in the first place. Whereas normal was running at 125 percent, the new normal is 75 percent on a very good day. I've always expected perfection of myself, with a few mistakes allowed here and there, the ones that I can rationalize. Now the quota of mistakes has been bumped much higher as I swallow reality, but it's still a quota and is closely tied to a humble heart which often isn't there. One more mistake, let alone one that affects hundreds of people (our church), and I'm a failure with no hope for recovery. I've let myself fall into that hole a few times, and believe me, it is bottomless. But thankfully, so is grace. And the instant that I fi-na-lly receive a free gift--lunch for my birthday, a bowl of popcorn from my roommate, a parking space from God--I melt. And I'm wisked back up into the sunlight with my feet on solid ground.

That I wish they would take care of themselves and not end up like me.

That I may look fine and healthy on the outside, but inside I feel hollow. Consider me the chocolate Easter bunny. I'm just that weak. There's nothing inside of me to draw from. Whatever makes human's "go" is not getting to the right places in my body. My batteries need to be changed. I'm pushing the gas pedal but there's nothing in the tank, regardless of what the meter says.

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If none of this is resonating and you think I'm blowing everything out of proportion, just know that these are the tormentings of the sick. This is what is going on just below the surface, but there aren't words, there isn't time, there isn't energy. Somehow simply writing this and sending it into cyberspace makes me feel so much better. This is the real burden I carry, the festering germies.

If this is discouraging, I'm sorry. I'll write the benefits of illness in the next blog, don't worry. It just really helps me to get this off my chest, and I trust I speak for other fellow sickies in turmoil.