I have come to realize how difficult it is to be “okay” when I am not actually okay. In the past, when someone asked me how I was doing, I would be honest and say, “I am good. How are you?” Now when I say, “I’m good,” it’s often a lie. I find it’s easier to lie than to bore someone with the laundry list of why I am not “good.” Plus, who really wants to hear that on a day-to-day basis anyway?
I have also come to accept the fact that plans are just not in the cards for me right now. I used to always be the one with the plan. I had a plan for a plan and another plan for those plans. It sounds funny, but back then, I sometimes would have to tell myself to chill out. Well, now my chronic illness is the one who prevents that from happening. I haven’t completely stopped making plans, but I view them differently than I did before. Making plans now usually ends with me having to cancel, and for anyone who I have had to take a raincheck on, I am truly sorry.
Even if I get dressed, get excited, and anticipate on having fun; when I am finally in the moment, I realize I just expended so much of my energy on doing all of those things that by the time I have arrived at “the plan,” my body is exhausted and I end up making a spectacle of myself by laying on the couch, sitting in the bathroom or falling asleep. That sounds super fun, right? Not.
Please know, I still would like to be invited out and still very much want to be involved, but something I have learned is that chronic illness is unpredictable. I never know when I am going to have a good day, an okay day or a really bad day. I do my best, but sometimes I can only give half of my best or even less than that, but it’s completely not personal.
One day, I hope to be able to make plans and not worry so much about the symptoms that follow or if there will be a couch available nearby to lay on. But for right now, this is what it is, and this is apart of who I am. I know I have changed, and I know I am different than I was before. Though it’s beyond my control, I still am sorry, as I never want to be the one causing disappointment.
The Chronicles of Chronic Illness 