But He Does Bring Me Magic Cards!
So, I haven't really gone into a lot of personal detail about what makes this Kat tic on my blog, as I long for my blog to be a space of whimsical, lighthearted entertainment and joy bringing fun. However, life isn't always buckets of bubblegum bullfrogs, and it is in that stuck to my shoe vein that I have decided to talk about a topic slightly more serious than my normal fare: chronic autoimmune illness.
I spent the first two thirds of my life not feeling well. Not that you would ever hear me complain about it, for I became very adept at functioning when I didn't feel good, just as a lot of folks with chronic illness or pain do. Of course, this developed a pattern of behavior where I would go hard and eventually crash, only to recharge a bit and complete the cycle again. Fun times I tell yah!
Well, a few years ago I kicked most of my autoimmune issues and symptoms to the curb through a massive lifestyle and diet change, and like with all changes a new issue emerged. For the first time in my life I felt GOOD, and I wanted to do all the things before this new sense of well-being was snatched from me! In the last three years especially I have seized the joie de vivre mentality by the flintlocks and ran with it down the enjoy life to the fullest road.
My behavior has finally caught up with me. For a few months I have been feeling a little like my old self in the well-being department. Chronic exhaustion reared its ugly head, and more than once I have broken out in inexplicable hives. For over a week now I have been suffering a crushing feeling at the base of my brain stem, a headache of massive proportions, so great in fact that it affects my ability to function on a most rudimentary level.
A sane person would have powered down and taken a couple of days to recuperate, but my smart self, conditioned by a lifetime of functioning whilst feeling horrid, kept pushing and moving forward. Which leaves us with today. So great is my exhaustion that I couldn't even get out of bed this morning, I have to think to move any of my appendages, and my vision is blurred thanks to day seven of my crushing glandular exhausta-headache.
My whole life I have bottled up my discomfort and pretended I am fine, and have taken care of business, but you know what, I am starting to realize that I need to take care of myself. Normally only those closest to me would know that I am struggling, but a lot of my struggle is my own stupid fault for thinking that I need to just suck it up and deal with things. Guess what? I sat in a chair in my yard for most of the day, not doing any of the tasks that I needed (or thought I needed) to do and the Earth revolved around the sun just fine!
And then there is my husband. He knows how incredibly much it takes for me to put myself on the injured list. So he brought me a couple of packs of Magic The Gathering cards as a get well token of his affection. This homesteading, volleyball playing, nerd felt all sorts of feelz as she sat under the fir trees in my yard looking through cards with my sweetie.
It was as I reclined in my camp chair, feet on a stump, languishing in the warm breeze today that I realized what I wanted to write about this evening. It's okay to halt sometimes. Don't be like this Moonbat Kat and push your body so hard that it rebels on you. Take some time and care for your form if it is ailing, for all those things that you think have to be done can be done later by a well-feeling you or maybe somebody else entirely. My since childhood thought processes of "be tough" and "hold it in, don't make a scene" are not doing anyone any favors, least of all me.
And it is in that mire of perspire that I am going to celebrate the next step of my behavioral modification journey, for each bit of tribulation that you experience during a journey of change is a reason for joy, for it means that you are on the path to personal revision. I may not like how I am feeling right now, but I have felt this way before, however, I am starting to think and behave in a new key, one of which will lead me to the next step in this journey called Life. Hopefully it involves bullfrog bubblegum. I like the sound of that.
Probably Not Necessary But Still Offered Ailing Kat Note: I am truly sorry that my posting has been a bit lacking, abbreviated, and not quite up to par as of late. Aside from being a digit down, as noted above, I am more than a bit kerfluffled in the body department. That I have posted at all in the last couple of weeks is a token of my great affection for this platform and mostly for you all. Thank you so much for hanging in there with me:o)!
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's currently under a flatulent and floofy feline, iPhone.
