Too often when I sit down to write something for other ears or eyes, I end up frustrated. I get too entangled with details and backstory. Plus, my mind isn't as adept as it once was; it's hard to find the right words. It's like my vocabulary has waned. But I think the real issue is living over a decade with fatigue and pain and weakness, over a 1-1/2 years with sleep deprivation, medications that dope me so I can fall asleep, and the plethora of tasks involved in my self-care.
In the morning, around 7:30 to 8:00 after I've opened my eyes from twilighting through my second shift of quasi-sleep which begins anywhere between 1AM and 4AM, I arise slowly, get my trekking poles from beside my bed, and carefully make my way to bathroom to relieve my bladder. Then I lie back down for one to two hours, accompanied with guided meditations, until my body says that it is okay to get up now. If I get up too early or overexert, my gut responds with nausea. It's a fine line to balance. Thus begins my workday of self-care.
The workday is filled with administering herbs, supplements, and pharmaceuticals at specific times; charting my symptoms and activities; going to my one to two per week healthcare appointments; feeding myself including my (mostly organic) nutritional smoothie which contains nine different nutritional food powders, adaptogenic tea formula, tart cherry juice, lemon juice, spinach, liquid COQ10, soaked chia seeds, frozen blueberries and filtered water; inverting in the morning before I eat or drink; lasering my body in part or whole; walking outside with trekking poles or my walker or riding my indoor bike; stretching my body as best I can in hopes that I can build some muscle and help relieve pain; keeping my various herbs and supplements and pharmaceuticals in stock; and more. Once a week, and occasionally twice, I bathe. Showering is harder, so I take Epsom salt baths. I can't dry myself, so I air dry while lying on the bed wrapped in my towel and a throw. Bathing and dressing are two of my hardest tasks. Recently I turned taking my socks off into a game I call "Kick the Field Goal."
It's all day long, and it's detailed work from light reaching my eyes in the morning, through the day, and into the night. I take the final doses of herbs in the wee morning hours at my 2nd shift of sleep; two herbal formulas I drink and one herb I chew. One could say those are my first herbs of the day.
Each day, I have to begin my wind-down bedtime routine around 5:30. I'm typically in bed between 8:00 and 8:30. So, it's a lot to get done in eight to nine hours for a body that has to move slowly and deliberately, traverse pain, and adapt to how much the body-mind is capable of on any given day.
I've barely just scratched the surface. I'm not complaining, but rather trying to give a glimpse of the work involved. It really is a full-time job.
After typing all this I ask, Carol is this what you really want to read at the workshop? No, it isn't. I want to write a poem for my good friend Susan who died on January 21, but nothing's flowing yet.
***
So, what song can I post to go along with this wordage?
Hmmm...
Got it!
