Spring-Summer 2023
I’m in a charmed sleep. A curse. But inside it I still dream, and in my dreams I live. I fuck strangers. I tackle obstacles. I am on a journey in my dreams: agile, voracious. Isn’t that nice?
I used to run every day. I used to dance for fun and for work. I used to lead other people in activities that make me nauseous to think of now. I don’t know how this body has always been so heavy and I only noticed it now. My body doesn’t have a wish, now. I’m not sure it wants to be well, yet. This rest is so fucking necessary. I hate that it took a global pandemic’s virus to make me stop trying to be a speeding train. I was never a speeding train, just a fragile animal, shivering.
Everything is fine as long as I don’t try to do anything I used to do to keep me happy.
I am still hurting from the way I used to live. I don’t yet have the nerve(s) to understand how I’m hurting now.
This post is woefully late, as is everything in my phenology.
September 3rd, 2022 I came down with a flu-like illness. I have not yet recovered. At first I thought it was heat exhaustion. Then, due to a mysterious infected bite on my leg, Lyme. Then, I was sure it was Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (aka chronic fatigue syndrome), or Long Covid, or one wearing the others’ name. Symptomatically, I am hounded by a fatigue which makes daily tasks feel like ordeals of strength and endurance. No matter how much I sleep - and, now, I sleep a lot - I am always exhausted. On bad days I have all-over body aches, headache, sensitivity to sound, and can barley keep my eyes open. On good days I want to take a walk to the end of the block. Sometimes I even do. Then I recover on the couch for an hour. The passage above was written in a gathering of my dear friends, and writing luminaries, Anya Pearson and Ella deCastro Baron in one of their To Exist is to Flare workshops. If you live with chronic anything, do some crucial self-care and join one of their next offerings.