Neglect

It has been a month, the month of June 2021. We had a beautiful holiday in Magoebaskloof. We did not see another soul and still came back after a week of fresh air and hiking to be tested positive for COVID. So be warned that this is not a perfectly planned and edited post, it may come off as a bit of a rant. So look at me being kind and inserting the ” read more” option here.

So if you have been following these random rants, you will know that I have not been dealing well with anything lockdown or isolation-related at all. So 10 days of sick people in the same house, without a kitchen sink (that is another story, it is physically not there!), sounded like a special kind of hell.

Luckily the Lilliputians did not really realise that they were sick, except for Lisa who got an ear infection (she is my daughter, after all). Between the Engineer and myself we had all the symptoms and some new ones. We were bogged down for more than 10 days, with fun little suprises just after you think that you are fine as well: vertigo and nausea, etc. We also had to work, and be responsible individuals (meaning we could not murder our children). So it has been a month!

I did however realise, again, how blessed I am with the people that surround me. Many friends brought food and checked in on a daily basis. My colleagues helped out with some work. Clients and service providers were understanding about not be able to attend meetings and some friends were even in isolation themselves – so we did a daily “how much does your life suck today catch up”.

Another lesson: I have always considered myself a self-motivated person. Truth be told, if you feel like crap, nothing is going to motivate you. I have written posts on here that preach about how to just get into the momentum of things, and how if you are stuck with something the best way is to just start. Lies… all of them. The truth is, that if you feel sick, sad and depressed, anxiety and overwhelm will be coming in the door soon, and then you simply feel paralised. Especially if you are not physically able to do the things that you love.

I have no patience. I have a friend who jokes that I was standing in the row when patience was dished out, but the queue was too long, so I left. So to suddenly know that there are things that need to happen but cannot be done was a difficult mind shift.

And then that little word: rest. So… anyone and everyone says that you need to rest. Which I wholeheartedly agree with. But… how? The Lilliputians are 4. And apparently, they need a snack every 4 minutes. There are some work that really just cannot wait for 10 days. There’s washing and housework because our help could not come. There is also all the admin associated with not being able to go anywhere. Ordering online is a blessing, but it does take planning, and thought and actually someone to do the actual order and make decisions on what substitute you want if they do not have your brand of toothpaste.

The month of June has taught me that sometimes things are going to force you to let go of the reigns. So the house is not going to be in perfect order (I am being kind, ours looked like a warzone), some emails are going to remain unanswered and a few things are going to fall through the cracks. Not only did I need to be patient with myself but also with my co-habitants. There needs to be a little more understanding and a little more mindfulness.

I tested positive on the 21^st of June, so today is 16 days. All the medical professionals indicate that 10 days should be enough … it is not quite. I think everyone deals with any illness differently. I had the psychiatrist on speed dial. I had friends who I phoned to rant about the Engineer’s inability to use the washing machine (true story), to asking one to please go and pick up tampons and drop it off at my gate.

So what I was actually getting around to in this post is how easily we fall into the pit of self-neglect. You just suddenly don’t care. And this is not even due to illness, it can be depression, it can be pain it can be anxiety or overwhelm or disappointment. It can be all of these things. For me it meant not really caring about getting dressed on any particular day, and then feeling crap because you look crap. It meant neglecting my journaling and prayer because I was feeling sorry for myself (I might have been sulking). It meant not keeping up with my tracking and lists and sticky notes.

I have, in difficult times, always craved for the understanding of others, mostly, so I can say something like “see, it is that bad, it is that hard, it is overwhelming”, but I think that I now realise, others don’t need to understand your journey. You need to understand yourself. You need to know when to take a break, when to work, when to pray, when to not be so hard on yourself, and when to kick your own ass. You need to understand how you deal with things and you need to be mindful. Nobody can figure this out for you, because it is not their journey.

So perhaps what I am getting around to, is that we need to learn how to prioritise, and that you yourself should be a priority first and foremost, otherwhise the other people and things do not fall into place. We need to learn how to not neglect ourselves… because it is a downgoing spiral.

On Sunday I went for a walk, and I was so disappointed in myself, because it was slow and it was hard, and just before this flu, I was running my best times. Even my heart rate was much higher than my last run. And again I realise that by making me a priority I need to acknowledge that things are going to take some time.