Thinking out loud
I have to tell you, friend, it has been harder than usual to get things together this spring.
I have had rheumatoid arthritis for the past 24 years and change, and this year, my early spring flare decided to be HUGE and to stay for a while, despite best efforts to get rid of it. Best efforts included keeping up with my usual IV infusion every six weeks, my weekly home injection of methotrexate, and several courses of prednisone.
By the time I’m done the course of prednisone I am on now, I will have been on it for 24 days out of the last 60, which is quite a lot. At least a friend told me that my rounder face makes me look a bit younger.
Add to that some travel and some (welcome!) family visits, plus my usual babysitting duties with my lovely grandbaby, and I was extra depleted and tired. Happy, but, you know . . . overtaxed.
And that’s before factoring all the fuckery that is US policies and their illegal “war” on Iran, and whatever other thing they’ve decided to destroy, ruin, or otherwise twist today. To be honest, dealing with that is a constant drain, and I’m not even a big news-watcher or exceptionally online person these days.
While last week’s infusion didn’t seem to give me a bounce, the addition of yet another six days of prednisone means I feel like I am finally starting to turn the corner toward my more normal energy level. That still involves daily management of energetic “spoons”, but is at least a functional place where I am not worried that I am a bit too zombified to be driving at the end of a babysitting day. (The struggle was a bit too real.)
Heck, on Saturday I went to see Florence +The Machine, and I could barely muster enthusiasm for the concert, since I was so wiped out. But it was still a great concert, and if she is coming your way and you can get tickets, I encourage you to go and get your magic on. For sure, you ought to listen to her latest CD, Everybody Scream. Though at the concert, it was the song KING that had me crying the hardest, as I tried to sing along with loud OHHH in the bridge. It’s a visceral thing.
I have made the decision to defer this weekend’s Beltane circle. Not that I won’t be celebrating Beltane myself, but frankly, there seems little interest in getting together this weekend. Perhaps we are all over-stimulated and run ragged by everything that the world keeps throwing at us, both on the macro level and on the micro level, where our friends and family and jobs come into play.
I am also thinking hard about what this particular business will look like moving forward.
I really love coaching, and adore those of you I have worked with, whether one-on-one or in a group setting.
I would love to keep doing it, and have a few more clients to make all of it feel more, I dunno, meaningful? Worthwhile?
So often I feel I am just here, speaking into the void.
I am proud of the good work I have done with my clients, and I know that I’ve made a positive difference in our world. But with everything going on, I am stopping now to ask myself if it is worth it to keep going on, or if it might be time to stop.
I suppose it’s a question we are all asking ourselves about something or other these days, right? Do we keep going on as we are? What do we leave behind? What are we willing to risk? What do we truly want to do? Do we have the courage to move toward the change, whatever it is?
Thanks to Grounded Coffee for excellent lattes