Checking In With Myself

2025 Has been as difficult for me as 2020 emotionally. This time in 2020 the COVID pandemic was really serious. Things were shutting down and people were told to stay at home unless you really had to go out. Now in 2025 everything is a big scary mess politically.

Undocumented people are hiding out while ICE is on the hunt to deport them. Or worse, hold them in Guantanamo prison. Women, people of color, disabled people, LGBT people are all targets by politicians. Thousands and thousands of important government workers have lost their jobs because of the whim of mad men with power. Much needed services are being cut right and left. 

I feel anxious and depressed. I haven't been sleeping well and I feel exhausted pretty constantly.

Personally these changes are affecting me very little. Like the lock down of 2020. But since I'm a caring person and I see the impact it has on people I love (and people I don't know,) it is affecting me in a major way.

I have to remind myself of all the good things there are constantly. Like...

• My family
• My puppies
• The support group I just started for women
• My beautiful house
• My many friends
• My lovely town
• Nature
• That I can walk a block without my chair still
• Art and cultural experiences still happening
• Good TV & movies
• My soft bed to rest on any time I need it (which is often)
• Pottery

It's already very much springtime here. That also helps me focus on good things. It's a "hopeful" time in the season wheel. 

Finding my Limits

My husband is away on a business trip and I felt a huge urge to cook last night. I had all the ingredients to make some things that I didn't think sounded very difficult. It felt within my wheelhouse. It didn't go great.

I managed to finish off what I had started, but only out of sheer stubbornness. I didn't know where my boundaries were when it came to cooking, but I sure found out the hard way. 

It was the first time I could feel my energy failing mid-work. I could feel myself getting more and more fatigued. And I'm not talking just my muscles. That feeling I'm used to. This was something new. 

It was a slow energy drain. Like a bucket full of water that has a leak. I could feel myself getting more and more tired with each thing I did. Even just standing looking at what was cooking. It was honestly a terrifying feeling. 

I felt scared that I wouldn't be able to finish before I had to go lay down. Frightened that I bit off more than my body could chew. Shocked that such a small thing could drain me so quickly. Regretful at my decision to cook so much and not just wait for my Mom to help me. And sad for myself that I was having that experience.

The whole thing wasn't all bad though. I don't know my limits if I don't test them. I also won't understand what's going on with my body if I don't pay attention. To have that very real feeling of my energy draining rapidly due to being overloaded, as scary as it was, is also helpful. My disease isn't just all about my muscles.

I told my husband the other day that I wondered if my need to rest mid way through the day is due to my doing so much when I'm awake. Especially physical things like showering, dressing, putting things in the house away, etc. I walked a touch over a mile yesterday just by doing these things. That's quite a bit for me.

The tricky thing about my "limits" is that they are constantly changing. What I can do today I have no guarantee of being able to do tomorrow. So that makes me feel in a bit of a panicked rush. I have a constant feeling of pressure to do everything that I can today because it might be the last time I can do it ever.

(I wanted to take a picture of some food that got dropped on the floor as I was cooking, but I didn't want my dog to get it so I hurriedly cleaned it up instead. I always tell my husband "It's not a day with me unless I drop something.")