Tired

I kind of don't think about it a lot these days, I guess because it makes me sad and mad and tired, and it's nicer just to forget about it, but a defining feature of my 20s was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Well, to be accurate, I never really fit the CDC definition of CFS, which includes something like "reduction in activity by at least 50%," and I'd guess my activity was actually only reduced by about 25%. Of course, in order to maintain that remaining 75%, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to do stuff that needed doing (hold a job, do laundry, go grocery shopping) despite feeling like holy hell and wanting so, so badly to lie down. It felt kind of like the very first day of a cold, you know? That day of feeling achy and sick, sore-throated and slightly feverish, and terribly run down, before the rest of the cold kicks in, and your nose starts doing its faucet impression. Only instead of lasting a day (or two), it lasted for 6-9 months at a time.

....

Okay, now it's nearly 2 weeks later. Yikes. My point was going to be that I've been having a small flare-up just now, and it's making everything harder. So, ah, there you go. Case in point.

Actually, my not writing has also had to do with how much I find I have to say about the experience of CFS, some of it still kind of inchoate and/or bound up in grief and anger. So I suppose I've been waiting for that golden chunk of time--you know, that magical unencumbered 5-hour interval that's going to pop up any moment now, when I can really sit and write it all out. And my life being rather short on magical unencumbered spans of 5 hours lately, I've been trapped in a mode of bloggorial (bloggitic? bloggorian? blogoleptic?) stasis, just going around and around inside my head about all the things I could write about chronic fatigue syndrome, that I would write, as soon as the chance presented itself.

I've finally come to the conclusion (inevitable, obvious, yet heretofore somehow elusive) that it ain't going to happen, and I need to move on. I'm also relieved that the current exacerbation seems to be letting up (these things are much shorter-duration for me these days, thank goodness) and making it more possible to write about other things. One day, I'll take the chance to sit and write at length about chronic fatigue, and craft it into a real essay, and post in on Rosie, Long Form. But for now, I miss writing funny pathetic, and I'm going to start doing it again, dammit.

Which is to say, hi, I'm back, didja miss me?