I Never Asked For An Easy Life

I feel that I am truly lucky and blessed. I hear a lot of what God tries to tell me and a lot of my decisions, both big and small, I made because God told me to do it.

I graduated from Oglethorpe because God told me to. I took the job at AVLF because God told me to. I became Catholic because God told me to. Believe it or not, I bought my Prius because God told me to and boy, do I look like a genius now.

I honestly believe that I hear him as well as I do because it’s what I asked for. When I was converting, I told him that what I wanted the most was to know what he wanted me to do so that I could live a life that glorified him.

I also made a few other requests that I honestly believe have been fulfilled or are on their way to being fulfilled.

But, the one thing that I didn’t ask him for was an easy life.

Today was a fairly standard Sunday for me these days. I told myself that maybe I would wake up in time and be well enough to go to church in person.

Instead, I struggled to go to sleep on Saturday night and woke up on Sunday morning twitching, with back pain, sinus pain, and barely enough energy to attend church online. Then, I slept most of the day.

Sunday is the only day I don’t take either of my stimulants. So, I am usually pretty tired.

Here’s my rough schedule these days: Monday, I work the 1st half of the day. I take 1 of my 2 stimulants. I sleep the second half of the day. I wake around 6, feed myself, work a little more, and fall back asleep.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I take both my stimulants and work a full day. Tuesday is usually the day with the most calls and meetings. So, Tuesday usually leaves me pretty drained.

Thursday is what I call my “mini Friday.” I call it that because on Friday, I typically only work the 2nd half of day. So, I usually don’t have to wake up early on Friday morning. That makes Thursday the one day of the week that I don’t have to worry about getting to bed on time.

Once upon a time, I spent Friday mornings indulging in self care and catching up on work.

I had a rotation. Every 3 weeks, I would go get my hair done. I would normally still wake up early on that day. My hairdresser is fast but it still takes several hours to do my hair. So, normally, I would wake up at 7:30, leave by 8, be there at 8:30, and normally finish up in just enough time to get to work by 1pm.

Other weeks, I would wake up at 9 and either do catch-up work and then exercise or I would take a nice long bath and then I would either give myself a pedicure or a facial.

I built catch-up days into my schedule back when I was healthier. Because even then, it was hard to keep up with responding to emails and it was hard to find time to get to creative projects and innovations for my program.

These days, it feels nearly impossible and yet I feel like I have more creative ideas flowing into my head than ever before. Honestly, if I had all the creative ideas that I have come up with since being sick back when I was healthier, I probably would’ve been caught up on work and generally less stressed out.

I don’t remember when I stopped my Friday morning rituals. I remember that I tried to keep it up after I returned to work. But, I just kept feeling drained by the end of the week and slowly all of those rituals fell away.

Next thing I knew, it had been 3 months since I last saw my hairdresser and every Friday just became me sleeping until 12:45pm and then hastily getting up and taking my pills (still 2 stimulants) and then logging onto work.

I like Fridays these days because they are formulaic. It takes less brain power because it’s the same steps to set-up every week. But, the pre-work that I do to get ready for Saturday means that I work into the night, usually finishing between 8 and 9pm.

Then, on Saturdays, I take 1 stimulant, nurse a cup of of chaga coffee, and I run the Saturday Lawyer day. Then, I log off around 1:30pm and I sleep for most of the rest of the day.

Most Saturday nights, I make the promise that I am going to church. I set alarms to get up early. Most Sundays, I sleep through those alarms or I wake up and either can’t think or feel awful or some combination of those. I fail to make it and then thank God that I can watch church online. Then, I fall asleep again. Then I wake up around 6pm, I feed myself something, and I start working, getting ready to debrief my team on Monday morning. And, if I am diligent and do everything that I am supposed to, I will finish some time around 10pm or 11pm.

That’s my normal week these days.

This week, I am more tired than normal because I didn’t follow my normal routine last week. Last week, I had to prep for a hearing. Then, after the hearing on Thursday, I was trying to make this big push to catch up on my emails.

I had 1217 emails total in my inbox, somewhere around 450 unread emails, and multiple complaints that I’m too slow to respond.

I worked on them on Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. I didn’t take my normal morning off on Friday. I woke up at 9am. I worked until I couldn’t think straight, which was around 3pm and took a nap. Saturday, I worked from 9-3 again. Monday, I again worked until I couldn’t think straight, which, was until around 5pm. I kept getting interrupted by calls, though. People desperate to talk to me.

One volunteer was angry that I took a week to respond to her and was threatening to return her client. Another client was begging me to call her because it was an emergency. But, when I called, there was no real advice I could give her. So, I just listened to her vent for 30 minutes. Another client claimed I didn’t care about her at all because I chose to answer her request for an update by emailing instead of calling her like she requested.

Tuesday, I again worked until I couldn’t think straight. I made it to 4pm. Then, I took a nap, woke up at 6pm, and did a bit more. In the end, I cut down the emails to 636 total, 300 unread (mostly interoffice emails). But, I felt like a complete failure.

I spent the rest of the week feeling drained of motivation and wondering if I really could even manage this job anymore or if I was just kidding myself. I posted in one of my survivor groups about how I was feeling and their responses really helped me feel less alone.

It was only today, reflecting on the last couple of weeks, that I realized why I feel so tired, so burned out, so drained.

But, I didn’t ask for an easy life.

I am honestly glad that I didn’t. There are a million really cool things that I have done, even just since I got sick that I would have never imagined doing. Who would have thought that I would be in prestigious newspapers, on TV, on the radio?

I have touched so many people’s lives. I have become an inspiration for some. I have so much love in my life. If any of the hard things in my life had been taken away, I may not have all that I have or have done all that I have done.

I didn’t ask for any easy life. And if I had it to do over, I don’t think I would.

#insomnia #reflection #supportgroup #spirituality #longcovid #gratitude #fnd #spoontheory #chronicfatigue