Monday, May 19

the way he made me feel


anon.



I don’t think I’m anti social. Infact, the happiest times have been exuberant conversations over food and drink. I am anti pain though, and since socialising brings pain, I feel a nasty cocktail of emotions before events. A melange of excitement and dread. Dread.

The event was a Hens, and being a bridesmaid, I was going to be there. I trained up to Melbourne at 12pm, and one minute at a time, I experienced joy and pain until 8.30 pm. I prayed, and drank water, and pined for champagne, and took breaks, and enjoyed, and ached and ached.

But it was Sunday which was cruel, just as anticipated. Overnight I was crushed by a semi trailer; so heavy did my bones and muscles become I thought they would fall out of me. So nauseous, so dizzy, so exhausted to the point of being unable to talk, so utterly hungover without a drop of alcohol. When I was awake, I thought: how can I endure this again after the wedding, but more severe? I can’t. I can’t endure this again, not in two weeks.

But two things broke through. You don’t have to endure the hangover from the wedding now. You only have to endure that hangover one second at a time, when it comes. You never have to live more than one second at a time, and if you can survive one second, you can survive two. Just live this second, don’t anticipate the next and compound the pain.

The second thing that I experienced was love, to such a degree that the memory of pain is wiped over by the memory of being cherished.

Ben got up the morning of my event, and baked Red Velvet Cupcakes for me to take along, with the nuts he had activated for me, and the quinoa porridge. Then he dropped me at the train station. At 8 pm I got a message saying that he had arrived in Melbourne, to save me, to carry me home. He drove me home, and carried me to the bedroom – the bedroom had been dark, dank, bedraggled in masses of my clothes, with dirty sheets on the bed. While I was away he had folded all my clothes, stripped the bed, vacuumed, and I saw white, and clean and clear.

I slept like a submerged log, and the next day he was at church when I awoke feeling poisoned. But my breakfast had been prepared for me, and soon he had chicken soup for my lunch. Later he came to the bed to show me pictures of our bombsite study completely arranged, with all my sewing things ready for me. More soup, more hugs, and then he read my book aloud to me, joining the story ¾ the way through and barely understanding the musical terminology. I laughed till I was hysterical about ‘fugue’ being pronounced ‘foo-goo’. Before I knew it he’d put my pajamas on, and my first day of hangover was over. When he said ‘I love you’, I thought what an action word love was. Yes, he loved me. And that is what I will remember.


The pain couldn’t go, but it could be over powered. So the excitement and dread before were replaced with pain and bliss. The light countered the dark, and I will remember the way he made me feel. I love that love wins over. 


4 comments:

  1. i'm so glad you have a blog because i love the way you write. you have a real gift at explaining what your life really feels like! xxx

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    1. That means a lot to me Sash, thankyou! I'm definitely too foggy in real life to explain it. Xo

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  2. Your blog is wonderful Danielle. I cared for a labouring woman in birth suite at a hospital this year and she had cfs. I had no idea what it must feel like or how it affects you day in day out. You put it into words so well and it's easier for me to understand. It must be really frustrating for you and even so you still seem to have a positive frame of mind. And what a fantastic, caring and understanding partner you have. It is definitely love!

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    1. Thanks so much for writing Erynne. I am always so interested and happy when I hear of cfs sufferers having babies and making it work. Having an empathetic midwife like you will have meant so much to her, just to be believed. And yes, it's love! These years would have been one hundred times harder without Ben.

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