You know what’s hard about having a body that’s a constant disappointment? Having a brain that isn’t. I need a vast amount of intellectual stimulation or I am stir crazy but this is often pretty impossible to accomplish when my body limits what I can do. Hell, if I had good health I’d be everywhere all the time – to new experiences!!
Last week illustrated this perfectly. I had gone to Maine for a few days with my beau and we had a few relatively easy destinations to hit for fun while we were up there. We wanted to visit the cemetery his great grandparents were buried in and I wanted to go to the abandoned tuberculosis hospital my great grandmother was once quarantined in.
It went pretty well except my tire exploded in the middle of nowhere and set off a series of unfortunate circumstances. First we were stuck aside the highway with no spare tire. Second the AAA service number said they’d happily send a truck to get the car to the nearest tire store but we’d need to Uber our way out due to Corona and policies and whatnot. Uber. that would have cost me $300 I didn’t have. Middle of nowhere Maine. From there when we did end up at the tire store they didn’t have a tire to match and we were FAR from any other tire stores or people that could help… and we didn’t have the money to stay in town either.
After putting on a misfitting tire we wandered back to base but then spent a good deal of the next day touring tire stores to amend the problem. Apparently no one in central Maine has a Prius. SIGH.
I had to drive back home to NH the next day, but first I had to go to Rhode Island to drop off my beau. It’d be a five hour drive there and a two and a half hour drive back to my home – it was already at the farthest reaches of my limits even before all the stress of the tire event, lack of sleep, and general chaos of the few days previous. My brain was already shutting down before I even got on the road.
It was HARD to stay awake and then to drive through fucking Boston. When I arrived in Rhode Island I almost decided to stay and nap before continuing my journey home — but that would be kind of weird as I’d just dropped my beau off at work and would be there on my own with his roommate. Awkward.
I ate, which I DESPERATELY needed, and got back in the car only to find myself immediately in a traffic jam I could not get out of for an additional three hours. So all and all I was in the car for ten and a half hours that day. I was basically dead by the time I got home. I didn’t unpack the car. I didn’t change into my pajamas. I didn’t do anything but come in the house and dramatically flop on the bed.
This week would have been trying to anyone but the crash I got to experience in retribution is distinct to those of us who are chronically ill. The whole day afterwards I slept and recuperated and hoped all would be well. However the very next day my period decided to show up in only the angriest way possible. I had cramps so bad I was in bed hoping for death as I bled profusely and watched my energy levels get even lower. And because I was in bed and not up and doing normal things like feeding myself the day after that I got a GURD induced migraine which lasted for two days and made me want to die even more.
See? This is what it’s like to live in a body that actively punishes you for not getting everything exactly right all the time. It can act up because I haven’t slept enough, because I didn’t eat, because I did eat but the wrong thing, because I was too active, because there was a full moon, or just for shits and giggles. I had to endure a psychiatric exam this week on top of all this and was asked, “Isn’t living in that unpredictable a situation depressing?” And I LAUGHED at this poor woman. YES, IT’S FUCKING DEPRESSING!
But I keep going. I don’t regret the trip to Maine at all. It was amazing to see the things I saw and to spend some time with someone I enjoy being around. Even though I paid for the experience dearly I’m not going to stop. Ever.
