For some time now, I’ve been feeling with my time as one feels with space when on crutches. My world has shrunk.
On crutches, everything is further away. You can’t drive places. You can’t hop on your e-bike and be there in 5 minutes. Taking the stairs requires a rest at the top. Sports are off the menu.
These days, everything seems to take more time, directly or indirectly. More time to do, but also more time to recover. I have to stop and catch my breath all the time. (Figuratively.)
I’ve barely started my day, and suddenly it’s mid-afternoon. Or early evening.
I think about what I want to do today. I modestly rein in my ambitions. I’ll write a blog post. And maybe pot some balcony plants.
I’m tired, the blog post isn’t written, the plants remain unpotted. Will I read, take a nap, try and set up the TV screen to watch a movie?
The TV screen has been waiting for me to set it up for movie-watching for weeks now.
Who ever heard of procrastinating diving into the two last seasons of Doctor Who? Because that’s what I’ve been doing.
Another day has gone by. I don’t like the fact that time is going faster, that I’m going slower, that I need to go even more slowly, and that the road ahead will probably not be made of more and more things to do, make, read, discover, live.
I still want to do all of the things – and more.
I’m getting better at saying, with an accepting sigh “well, no, that’s not going to happen today.” We’ll see what tomorrow brings. But I’m not happy about it.
After so many years trying to fight procrastination, and these last few years which felt like I finally had a go at beating it (thanks methylphenidate), it feels very strange to willingly give in to the underlying discouragement that has always accompanied facing something to accomplish, and say “if it feels like too much effort, I’ll just not do it now”.
I’m realising how much I have learned to push and push myself, power through, and how instead of learning to listen to what my tiredness and discouragement could be telling me, I learned to beat myself up and feel like a failure for not managing to push them aside yet again.
It’s very strange to be allowed to allow (!) myself to be tired or not have the energy for something. And it’s scary, because the amount I feel able to do if I really listen to myself is not very much.
I know I’m still in recovery. Things will improve, I’ll have more energy, I’ll be less tired, doing will cost me less. But I can see, very clearly, that even once I’m back on my pre-accident feet, as I will not go back to pushing myself as I did before, I will do less. Hard choices will have to be made.
Or, with a bit of luck, if I have managed to grieve the unrealistic expectations I place upon myself enough, maybe they won’t be that hard.