Chronic Rants

This is far from a new topic, for me or for anyone with disabling chronic illnesses. Still, after so many years, I would like to say that I have finally figured out how to do less. I would like to say that, but I would be lying. But hey, at least I’m making progress, and that’s the important part, right?

I feel like a very productive, active, adventurous, exciting person trapped in a body that can’t do all of those things that I want to do. Granted, even folks without chronic illnesses often can’t do all of the things that they want to do. Just because you don’t have a disabling chronic illness doesn’t mean you have the time, money, or capacity to everything you want to do. Still, being disabled makes certain things impossible.

Let’s ignore for a minute the bigger things that I want to do but can’t: skydiving, backpacking around the world, eating new foods in different countries, going on road trips, reading all of the books that interest me (ok, this would be impossible no matter how healthy I was), exercising regularly and getting strong, owning a dog. Let’s focus on the simple day-to-day tasks like cooking meals, doing laundry, writing, knitting, and working on personal projects. Even with only these, I get overwhelmed.

Every day I write out what I want to do, and every day the list is too long. I can never complete it. I have been making a huge effort to cut that list down and so far it seems to be working. Many times there are only 3 or 5 incomplete tasks instead of the 12 or more that remained several weeks ago. But that’s still too much. I need to be able to finish everything and have time to relax without feeling like I should be doing something more. The problem is simply that I want to do it all! I look at the list and think, that’s too much, I should remove something. But there’s nothing on there that isn’t entirely necessary and that I want to remove, so I keep it all. Then I don’t finish it and I feel stressed out. If I could just make myself attempt less, I would get the same amount down, but probably with less stress, right?

I recently wrote my first book and I want to write another one. I want to help friends with their projects. I want to clean out my closets. I want to spend more time on my volunteer work without feeling rushed or overwhelmed every time. I want to go on more dates (via Zoom these days). I want to have more social time with friends (also via Zoom these days). I want to spend more time reading. I want to do so many things, but there are only so many hours in a day, and of those, there are only a certain number of hours that I’m able to do things.

On a good day I might be able to do things from 10am-5:30pm. That’s a long time. But somewhere in there I need to get dressed. I might need to shower. Meals need to be cooked, dishes need to be washed, laundry needs to be done, cleaning needs to happen. I need to take walks and do my physical therapy. I need to eat. There’s a lot of rest time built into those hours, too; I definitely can’t be engaged the entire time. Some of that time can be used for active activities but some of it must be sitting and working at my computer on a less physical project. At various times I will be answering emails and text messages, too. What most people do in 16 hours must get squashed into those 7.5 hours, and that’s on a good day. On a less good day I have fewer hours, and on a bad day I hardly have any hours at all. Plus, each thing simply takes longer than it used to. Cooking a meal that used to take me 45 minutes now takes me an hour and a half. Getting dressed takes longer. Answering each email takes longer. Between my brain working more slowly and my body’s decreased abilities, many things have slowed down. That means that not only do I have fewer hours, but I can do less in those hours. But I’m guessing this is familiar to you.

The thing is, I still want to do so much! My ambitions and desires are still there, even if my abilities have diminished. I look at my list of goals for the year and it feels so doable, but then I want to work on everything at once and that’s not doable at all. I look around my apartment and want to do ALL THE THINGS. I want to clean the shower, knit a few more rows of that blanket, put together that shelf thing for my shower that’s been sitting in the corner, watch that dvd sitting next to the tv…. A hobby here, a task there, a new project, an old favorite – somehow there’s simultaneously too much and not enough.

The only solution, of course, is to adjust my expectations. I know this, I know it very well, but I still struggle. My plan was to finish this piece with a list of the steps I would take to improve the situation. Or maybe I would discuss a new mindset. The truth, though, is that I have known the answer all along, and I bet you have, too: I can not do it all, and must stop trying to do it all. At least, for now. I must focus on what I can do, and try to be content with that. And who knows? Maybe I will still be able to do some of those other things down the road? After all, if you only write one page each day you will, at the end of a year, have written a book. So if I only write a few sentences, knit a few rows, clean one countertop, sooner or later, in theory, I should be able to do at least some of what I want to do. It’s not enough, but it will have to be enough for now.