Those challenges many of us face, be it losing weight, extracting oneself from a bad relationship, dealing with a break up or death of a loved one, financial hardship, health issues--I've been told that you simply can't do it alone.
Despite what I'm told, I'm testing that theory as we speak.
I don't need anyone to hold my hand all of the time, but when my resolve slips, my confidence wanes beneath unrelenting weakness and pain of which there's been no tangible hope of it ending soon, it would be nice to have someone who gives a crap present. And I'm not talking about someone being in the same room, but someone who is Actually present. Finding someone who can be actually present is a lot harder than it sounds. At least in my experience.
I've dealt with people who say they love me but choose to be abusive and/or simply not there emotionally. Trust me when I say this isn't my first rodeo. And I can tell the difference between if someone is 'absent' with malice or not. In my current situation there isn't any malice, but it doesn't feel a lot different from the situations I've been in where this was the case.
If you've not read the post below you probably won't understand what I'm about to say...
I've been so sick over the past week that I've been bedridden until today. The why's and wherefores of the situation is in the post below. But I'm going to be very blunt here, and at the risk of sounding like a weakling--which is far different from being physically weak, btw. Still, my experiences over the past week have both saddened and introduced an anxiety about my vulnerability in the life I'm in at the moment.
Bedridden, for me, means sitting up for any length of time is impossible, that standing and walking are feats that make me feel like I've just done something magical. Standing means my legs shaking so badly that I'm not sure I'll make to to whatever destination I'm heading towards, even if it's 6-10 ft away. Sitting up, as well as standing and walking, means I feel a wave of extreme weakness wash over me from the top down, leaving an equally intense aching in its place. This means that over the past several days I don't eat unless someone can bring me something.
The lack of appetite and early satiety, at least, has helped make this vulnerability easier to bear, though my body does send uncomfortable signals that I need nutrition. I've also lost my taste for water and have to force myself to drink it. Even with small sips my stomach revolts with waves of nausea.
T worked from home a couple of days this week and was home, of course, over the weekend. I've never felt so much like an inconvenience. But the worst of is is when I really, really needed help with something and he just was indifferent, if he heard me at all. This isn't going to be easy to say, but I will for clarity here... at one point I was getting a bad headache with nausea which told me I needed to eat something. I'd had a small container of yogurt and a banana (had to force the yogurt down because I felt full after a couple of bites), but it had been about 10 hours since I'd eaten when the sick filling came over me. I asked T to please bring me something, anything, a banana... whatever... just to stave off the nausea and headache. He was too busy, he said. It was about an hour later when I finally ate something, and I had to eat it sitting on the side of the bed because I didn't have the strength to make it to the dining room. I spent a few days, up until yesterday, having to take whatever food I could get down in the bedroom where I'm sleeping due to T's snoring. Can't sleep at all in the same room with him. Anyway....
In the hour it took to get a banana to eat I laid in bed contemplating what I was going through and wondering what it would be like if I became seriously ill and had to rely on him to take care of me until I recovered. It didn't take long before I was consumed with homesickness, a longing for my simple life in my little apartment in Mobile. This isn't the first time I'd had this feeling, btw, but this was by far the most intense.
I learned that I have to find a way to disconnect from my situation while still IN my situation. I've done it before, but I was a LOT healthier then. How do I do this? That's the million dollar question, isn't it?
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