My therapist has resorted to using memes on me, specifically the “pick…pick fewer battles” one, for whenever I’m talking about life or my workload and how I feel like I’m never doing enough and ought to be doing more.
Then today when I said “I feel bad, I feel like I should be able to do so much more now that I’m feeling better but I don’t seem able to do it”, she took her glasses off, rubbed her eyes and said, “Joy, not to be condescending on main or anything, but you literally almost died a month ago. You need to give yourself more time…” to which my knee-jerk response inside my head was, but I don’t have enough time… and then it hit me. I do.
I’ve spent the last year or so, grappling with the knowledge that my life was running out. I could feel it happening, and it wasn’t like the rapid and traumatic brushes with death I’ve had before, there was no quick intervention, no discernible cause, no relief from it. Just the sensation of slowly fading away to face the great inevitable. And I was so angry about it. I still am.
And then I finally got the correct diagnosis. Not cfs, not bi-polar, not anxiety, not laziness, not conversion disorder…and things changed. I got treatment. I got better. And suddenly I have time. And I’m panicking with what to do with it cause I never thought I’d have the chance. Because suddenly, I can do everything. But I also don’t have to. I get to choose.
I get to pick my battles. And I can pick fewer if I’d like, because suddenly, I have time.
I have time.
