I Don’t Have A Title For This
#tiredMind #ChronicIllness #whatdoyouDo? #freewrite #aspirationalWriter #hashtaghashtag #twentyfiveminutes.
I’m going to start writing. This sentence now. This word. Here.
I keep half-starting to write something else, I want to write an article that matters. I have many ideas. I’ll tell you but then I’ll have to kill you.
(What?)
Sorry, verbal tic. Written tic. Do we still talk about tics? We should talk about tics, the insect kind. I have so many friends who live with long-term lyme disease. This shit is serious. Also, these friends and I get each other. There’s a language of fatigue and medications supplementations alternative practice and chronic illness that you either don’t know or you know.
You know?
I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m writing. I would apologize for not knowing, but I don’t know who you are and I’m tired of apologizing to strangers. I’m tired of apologizing to not-strangers. I’m tired of apologizing. I’m tired of tired. Tired. This is part of chronic-illness speak. I wonder if this is what I am writing about.
Nineteen more minutes.
I do this thing, this thing on Medium, where I write for twenty five minutes. It’s not very good, it’s not really about ‘good.’ It just is. Sentences and words strung together. Sometimes I count down the time left. Like now, the clock says seventeen more minutes. The clock is the one in charge here. I take no credit or blame for what words emerge. My job is to show up. I’m showing up. Also, I’m unemployed.
Unemployed.
Work. Job. Money. What do you do? How do you support yourself? Why don’t you work? Why haven’t you been working? What have you been doing? What’s wrong with you?
I’m tired.
The words are lacking, I don’t know the words.
Sometimes I say things like: chronic illness, multiple sclerosis, disability. Sick. Fatigue. Unwell. I’m managing. I’m functioning. (Do you know how much work it is to function? Unemployed my PO*&O&^*. I work overtime. I work all the time.
I’ve gotten tired of those words though (tired of tired).
Sometimes I say things instead like: I’m healing. I’m experiencing fatigue. I’m adapting.
(What do you Do?)
Sometimes I say: I’m a writer.
Eight more minutes.
Oh dear. I’m done for. There is nothing left to say. It’s been a long day. I start rhyming when my mind has gone away. My mind. I lost my mind. Do you mind?
Here is an example of mindless action: eating cookies, more and more and more, because they are there and they are delicious and your impulse moves faster than your stomach can communicate.
Here is an example of a mindful action: Paying attention — to literally anything. Attention to this moment. Attention to this action, to this thought, to this sensation. Attention to this breath rising. Attention to this stomach, overfull and digesting. Attention to this sentence. Attention to this word. Here.
Sometimes I’m tired. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to do. It’s hard when people judge this, too.
And in those moments, I start to write. I see what happens. Sometimes it’s lacking. Sometimes it’s
oh I don’t know.
But it’s been twenty five minutes.
