Challenges
Several weeks ago I heard someone say, "God gives us challenges the moment we're ready for them." I can't say that I am thrilled about this, as I'd appreciate a reprieve now and again. But I have come to see the truth of it these past couple months.
Sickness
I've had a rough time recently. I came down with a severe case of the flu at the start of July. Initial sinus infection symptoms faded in a week, but fatigue and brain fog persisted for more than a month. Ugh. I have never been this sick for this long before. I've never been so limited in participation in my life.
The matter of the sickness itself was half the battle, the other half my panic at the longevity: what if the fatigue never goes away? What if I have these limitations forever? I struggled emotionally to cope, the more so as time went on. I am grateful for the support of my friends who helped me during this period.
Anxiety
Immediately preceding the illness, I was under an enormous amount of stress at work and in my personal life. I began dating a woman with whom I started falling back into old patterns of behavior. On the heels of a challenging work project I faced a test of my management skills. These scenarios played out over several weeks.
Stress intermingled with the illness, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Some small and strange phenomena was that in my low-energy days my emotions were mellow; on better days, my emotions came back like roaring waves crashing over me on a day of rough surf. I couldn't catch a break.
Recovery
I am writing on a Sunday, having had the most lively weekend in over a month. On Friday, I attended a friend's performance in a community production of Matilda. Yesterday, I went kayaking with a few close friends, spending several hours on the water. Today, I went on a hike with a new friend. I feel like I'm back at full performance.
Will I give myself a chance to breathe? I'm torn between feeling like I need to make up for lost time (a July spent on the couch!) and continuing to invest in my rest and recovery. As I learned about fatigue, over-doing it on high-energy days is a classic trap that lays the seeds for future crashes.
Humility
These past weeks have been humbling. The five remembrances include, "I am not immune from sickness; I will get sick." Hearing this I thought, all well and good, some day I'll get old and sick, but that's a problem for old and sickly me. I am young and healthy me, I bounce back fast from sickness. Well, at 31 years old, I feel the truth of this remembrance. I am of the nature to get sick, severely sick.
The fatigue was especially painful. In the past I've been able to push myself as hard as I need to, and I've long taken for granted my ability to live my life as physically as I've so wanted. With fatigue, there were days I couldn't move off the couch, no matter how much I wanted to. The brain fog has had me forgetting names, places, memories. My job is intellectual and my inability to perform at my usual level deeply unsettled me.
I am thankful for the opportunity to face this challenge. Despite years of working to curb my ego, a little scratch reveals it, seemingly bigger than ever - but I just take that to be my growing awareness seeing more of my inner parts than ever before. I'm thankful for the experience and my ability to navigate it successfully. I'm thankful for all of the challenges that I've navigated recently, some that I'm more proud of than others.
I am most of all thankful for the loving support that I received from my friends.