essence of sad

Have you been so sick for so many years, that you lack the will to go on?

They say health is the most important thing, cheerfully they pronounce it, to inspire their gratefulness, 

to wash away their great unhappiness.

But you don't have health. 

You don't have well. 

They say friends too, they are better than career you know. 

Career, it went, but friends you have. 

You have friends you rarely see,

friends you hold on to, but always fob off. 

You love them from your couch, but it isnt enough.

You don't cook for them, ever, and you're always writing to say 

'less than an hour, but I love you ok'. 

I'd love you better if I could. 

My mind loves you. I swear. 

They say happiness inside, that's up there too. 

Peace for the ride.

And you have that one. But with essense of sad.

You want it unconditionally. 

In the sore, crawling, lonely, drought.

But it morphed into sad, behind your back, so now you feel bad. 

That you're sad. 

Sick bad, and then guilt bad. 

And lonely bad, and too-long bad,

And hermit, outcast, worthless, cold,

too-much, and can't-go-on bad. 

Till the sun pops out. 

It kisses you and hugs you and shouts:

It's a beautiful day to be alive.

Alive. 

You have alive! 

And alive is meant to be here,

and meant to be here is purpose,

and purpose is go on. 

hi struggler, have you tried...?

It's been over 300 days now since I gave birth, or kind of gave permission to have my stomach cut open. I said, "I can't read all that stuff about dying or never walking again, so I consent but I'm not looking at what I'm consenting to," and signed a blotchy left handed signature, a Freudian smudge, thinking to myself, I probably will die of panic, or feel the surgery and then die, and I hate this idea and being an adult even though I simultaneously love that my body grew a baby, and I bet she's not even as sick as you think, I bet she's perfect, and I really hope we both live.  

And we both lived. We have lived strugglingly and lovingly ever after. 

I'm accustomed to struggles, as are most humans. There have been a couple of uncanny similarities between chronic illnesses and the more woeful parts of parenting, which sounds like a miserable thing to say, but it has happily made the whole experience almost familiar. 

I went to an opshop after not sleeping through the night for nine long months, and having chronic fatigue and another illness, and the man at the counter said perkily, "You look well rested!" I fumbled for a reply, but I was so absolutely unrested I could not think of one. Awkwardly I murmmed something about resting during the day. To which I'm sure he thought, see, these housewives just sleep all day, no wonder they're well rested. I have a feeling he either isn't parent, had a unicorn baby who slept in a cot and through the night before it walked {please may this happen to us, there's still time, please}, or snored through his offspring's night time howls for comfort. Or maybe he suspected it had been a while since I'd received a 'fresh as a daisy' type of comment, so he took it upon himself to deliver it. 

Whatever the case. Have you seen me lately?! Probably not, because I'm too tired to leave the house. But the dark moons under my eyes, they take pleasure in shocking me when I pass mirrors. If you looked up my Google searches which you must never ever do because you will think I am unfit to be an adult (I never wanted to be one anyway) you would find ,"how to make eye shadows go away?" written all different ways to get the best search results possible. They said: Get more sleep. I closed the tabs. They have no idea, they have not met my child. They said: Wear make up. That's not 'away'. That's hidden under paint, and I don't like that when I take paint off I feel more fugly. They said: Wear cucumber circles. I don't think we even have cucumber because I'm too sick to go to the shops and Ben doesn't buy them because they're not carby enough for me, and I don't lounge round in a bathrobe with slimy disks over my eyes because that's not keeping half an eye on my charge. I didn't find one single thing that would help, not one glimmer of hope. And then I started finding white hairs, aged twenty five almost twenty six.

Google, Google, on my phone: how come my hairs are already snow white?!?! 

Google said, genetics. I said, sleep deprivation too.

Anyway, I am not well rested. I used to feel unwell after sleeping from 9.30 pm till 8.30 am only waking to coldy inform my bedmate that he was snoring, but now I'm lucky to get till 12.30am in one stint. So, I feel tired-dead-tired-dead, as I expected to. Tired isn't a good enough word. Wasted. Or my favourite for this year: Haggard.

Humans have been trying to make other people's lives better since the first suffering. I have a serious case of it, though I'm trying to reform. It's a way of loving, it can also be a way of irritating. Early on, just after my diagnosis, people who had never had this illness used to say 'have you tried this expensive treatment and this almost extinct herb and this quack of a doctor and this unlikely and exorbitant retreat you can't afford because you're on the pension and this mental health book and this YouTube video, because I think it will cure you?' Every second day. I tried so many things I can't remember them; things which seemed affordable or scientific or whatever. Mostly I only tried the advice of actual sickies, because the other people had read something about my illness for one minute, and myself and my friends had been reading  for years. 

And then came along my baby, who doesn't sleep if she isn't touching me or Ben {slash using us as her mattress}, and 'doesn't sleep through' which is code for 'normal non-unicorn baby'. You know when you accidentally let slip that life is hard? Help arrives! So fast you're not even sure if you asked for it! Usually, a vast array of suggestions you've already dismissed. There was a flood of kindliness in the form of, "have you tried warming her bed up, or rocking like this, patting like so, going to a sleep clinic where you won't sleep for five nights and will consequently end up in hospital with vertigo again, or making her cry till she gags and then gives up because she knows you're never coming back?" And "Have you tried solids, solids, solids?" And "Oh, she doesn't like solids? Mine does. But, I love my food!" Ah. Well that solves the solids question. I only eat with gusto seven times a day.

All the comments were relevant to different kinds of mini human beings, but not the kind I have. And amidst all the kindly comments came this one,

"You guys are troopers. These sensitive koala babies are really hard work, and you're doing so good. You'll get through one night at a time. " 

No advice.

None.

Even though she was the best poised to give it because she's mothered one just like mine. There were also people at church who made us dinners, and said, we struggle too, we have no advice, how can we help. 

As it is with the sick ones. They don't hand out advice, because they know that of course you've tried, and you will ask. Or that you have no choice but to endure, and you merely need a kind word.

They're strangely familiar, these fresh struggles. We have met before.
 An issue not easily resolved. Plodding on, sometimes hopefully and peacefully, and sometimes with bitter lead in my veins. There's always the poignant symptom I am well acquainted with: the struggle to feel untainted happiness for the ones who have what I don't.
It bears the hallmarks of my longing to be well, and my friend's longing for a partner, and my other friend's longing for a child.
This year it just hit. Deja vu. It's all the same, when you simmer away the specifics.

We're all the same.
We've all just weary and in need of a kind word. A really kind word.