Ill At Ease

A dark living room illuminated only by a laptop. The fish tank light has been off for over an hour now--an early bedtime for Benny, Nora, Eric, & Amadeus, as I usually make them keep me company until 1 or 2 in the morning. No television flashing, no iphone at my elbow ready to be consulted for a host of inane reasons. Just this.

I feel a strange detachment toward the world tonight, but I don't think it has anything to do with being less plugged-in than usual. If anything, limiting my contact with electronics helps me to plug into what's really going on inside me. The surreal otherness of the world around me may have something to do with not having stepped outside once today, & with only having had brief exchanges with humans that were limited to the phone before Dion got home from work. It just felt right to stay put today. The snow was swirling caustionary messages outside my window all day. My muscles were still screaming from having overdone it at the gym on Sunday, The house was still all clean from my frenzied housework yesterday. It seemed a perfect day for lounging and reading and dreaming. And I did these things, but felt removed from my own relaxation, somehow.

I feel I don't have the words for any of it right now. The fatigue in my body seems to have spread to my mind & spirit, but the heaviness is only unpleasant when I fight it. I almost feel like this all-consuming lethargy is protecting me from myself. It is intercepting anxieties with exhaustion so immense I cannot summon the strength to entertain my worries.

Or perhaps I'm just spinning the story in this direction because I'm sick to death of my days being at the mercy of my body's whims. No, I don't feel well at all. That's the truth, I guess. And I'm saddened by not having the physical or mental energy to tackle all the things I want to: writing several pages a day, working on jokes & regularly attending at least 1 open mic per week. But perhaps this isn't exactly the case either. I need to realize that I can carve out time for these things, but I have to do them in my own way with emphasis on self-care. I can go to an open mic and not drink. Ta-dah! It sounds impossible, but I think it would go a long way toward improving my health & making comedy viable on a consistent basis. I can write one page per day right after breakfast before I begin the litany of chores and errands that leave me exhausted and in pain.

I can work at my own pace & impose reasonable limits. I don't have to give things up. I just have to do things differently. I can work with ehlers-danlos. Fighting agasint it only exhausts and confounds. And now, I must sleep so that I might feel better tomorrow.