When I wake up, most people have finished their day.

They can already think of the moment they will get home and proudly say, that’s it for the day ! or at least , that it has been a long one. 

They can say they have got something done, whether they enjoyed it or not. 

At that same moment, while looking at the sun reaching out for the horizon, I have got nothing… done. I haven’t accomplished nothing. I’m barely awake. Wondering if I can make it through the rest of the day. How can I be so tired, stiff, dizzy and overwhelmed when I haven’t got anything done yet ?

Maybe coffee will help. Maybe not. Maybe talk my body into doing some walking and breathing to get the machine started, slowly. Breathe, breathe until you feel the air flowing through your lungs, your chest, your shoulders, making its way to your brain while cracking your bones and muscles on its path. It hurts, it feels good, it makes my head spin and my vision blurry.

Try again, repeat the process until it gets clearer, I keep telling to myself. Ignore the pain or embrace it until it feels good. It’s just breathing. Breathing can’t hurt. 

It’s getting chillier, the shadows got bigger while I was breathing and wait! Where is the sun ?

The sun reached the horizon before I could and I still haven’t got anything done. 

Then how I can feel so tired ? So crushed ? when I have barely walked and definitely haven’t got anywhere ? 

« How was your day ? How is it going ? What did you do ? « 

What am I supposed to answer to that ? « I tracked the sun, tried to race it somehow, and the sun advised me to try again tomorrow. »

It sure is a better answer than « Nothing. » That, I can’t say. Not to the people who care enough to ask.

I can’t tell them. Neither can I lie to them.

I cannot tell them that my everyday has come to that. Struggling to breathe properly. Without the hurt. Maybe even stand on my feet and get a thing or two done. Or none. I cannot tell them that I strive to do things they do everyday without even noticing or questioning them. Let alone the things I can’t even consider and that they actually have been doing, before sunset.

Why can’t I tell them that ?

Probably because it makes me feel ashamed. Ashamed, weak and most of all, useless. They are trying their best while I, myself, I am failing at doing even that.

No matter how much my body hurts, my skin burns, my head spins… I keep hearing this voice telling me  » Try harder. Breathe deeper. Crawl if you have to, but get things done even if takes your last breath away. »

I can’t tell people who are struggling everyday to make a living, to take a leap of faith even when there seems to be none, that meanwhile, all I could do, is get out of bed and breathe.

I can’t tell them that not only I am useless but I also need… help. I need help to get out of bed. I need help to take a shower. To eat, to get out… to sleep. Why ? because somehow they believe I can do it and therefore I start to believe it myself. Otherwise why would they still ask « How is it going ? and what I’ve been up to ? » knowing that overnight, no one invented a cure. Unless I missed that while being off.

Probably because I had all the time to rest and therefore must be feeling better.

That my friends, is exactly what my body fails to do properly. Rest. Regenerate, restore. That is exactly what my conditions, whether it is Fibro, CFS, depression… keep me from doing.

Also, I can’t tell them that. Because I did. More than once.

« Get busy. Work out. Take better care of yourself. Rest. Find ways to take your mind off of it. No one can help you but yourself ».

Myself feels ashamed, weak and useless for not being able to do just that. Myself is crushed by invisibles illnesses that make it look, better than it actually is and there is nothing I can do about that but breathe and try again, next day.

So yes, I’d rather let them think that it must be nice to stay up all night and oversleep next morning. Take it one day at a time.

I’d rather let them think that eating once a day is because intermittent fasting is the best way to stay fit, effortlessly. That if it takes me hours to take a shower it is because it is Spa day !

That it must be nice to start the day when most people have finished theirs. That if I didn’t get anything done, it is probably because I don’t really have to or even want to.

Anything but the truth ! May it be the exact opposite of the truth !

Simply because the truth is pitiful and I can’t afford to add that to the list.

So yes, I stopped trying to answer their questions just to fail at it miserably. I stopped trying to explain my uselessness while trying to sound less… complaining. Less annoying.

Do you have any idea how annoying it sounds to hear someone who got out of bed way past your lunch time, complain about how hard their day was/is ?

I can’t tell them how hard it is. I’d rather let them think that they are doing better, in comparison, when really there isn’t much to compare. I’m sick and have a hard time admitting it, how are others supposed to get it ? As long as I keep comparing myself to what should or could have been, I’ll always feel less than. Underachieving, ashamed, weak…

There are many parts of myself that I felt like losing through time, but my ego is definitely not one of them. This is why I chose to hide, most of the time. So I don’t have to actually answer their questions. If you don’t see it then it’s probably not there. That is invisible illness. If you don’t talk about it then you’re probably not feeling it. That, is on me.

So today again, I raced the sun to the horizon and it left me way behind.

I haven’t had a single meal. I haven’t washed the dishes. Haven’t earned a single dime and certainly havent got any better. But I wrote this, for you to read. So today, I might have got « nothing » done but there is that ! and at this point my friends, That just might be « everything » to me.