Another Year Older

In the life horizontal.
(A special post for the 12th May Blog Bomb)

This year the brief resurrection has required even more effort than last year.
(you really know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when you start to get splinters.)
I find it difficult to  remember that when I started this blog putting a few words in every day seemed no terrible effort, and a useful way of keeping track of how my condition varied.

Hmm.

In the last twelve months, despite variations, and the greatest NON-efforts I could make to avoid excess activity, the trend has still been unmistakably downward.
Things I might have attempted this time last year are beyond reach.
Even my internet world is shrinking, as favourite groups and support groups have had to be visited less frequently, or dropped entirely as cuts in my energy budget needed to be made.`
Similarly with Skype and other contact with friends
Even real-life visitors have to be put on ration: company is tiring.
(doubly so if you keep having to explain that to people who "don't get it")

I'm more definitely housebound than last year, and more horizontally inclined too.
I have sold my car: there were no realistic prospects of me resuming driving in terms of months.

My garden is beyond reach in terms of doing anything: by the time I get there I've overdone it!
Nature is reclaiming my garden railway.  That is going to be an interesting job of rediscovery and restoration, come the day.  
(preferably before it's a job for Time Team)
Nothing is going to be permanently spoiled.  
It comes under the common Chronic Fatigue Syndrome category of "that's just going to have to wait."
And the next bit of CFS discipline is not getting frustrated, angry, depressed or anxious about things moving into that category: these only burn up precious energy to no useful effect. 

Finding things to do that keep my mind from going mad that take near zero energy (mental and physical) is important but, just to hit one of so many Catch-22 moments, it can't be something to put a lot of effort into!

I still manage a little bit of playing with model trains in my Dr Frankenstein way, and get a few smiles and laughs by having varied displays in my kitchen window.   I don't change them so often as I used to, though.

Christmas involved some festively modified dinosaurs 

And a set of Santas (cake toppers) working-out for Christmas.

So, circumstantial evidence notwithstanding, especially as far as some friends and internet contacts are concerned, I'm not dead.  I'm not even pining for the fiords.


Just not very conspicuous, due the the nature of the condition.
We're not that into protest marches, sponsored abseiling or marathons etc,  It's that Catch 22 again.
If I weren't so ill I could make a better job of telling people how ill I am.

Oh yes... My local self-help support society and magazine has folded...
... no-one was well enough to keep it going.

That fits.  And is the sort of thing where black humour comes in handy.
I tend to rely on that and it hasn't failed me yet.
Along with some Norse or Anglo-Saxon fatalism, and some Buddhist-like detachment.
I work with whatever I can find that works.

Chris
For the #May12 BlogBomb