A November Truce

After Sunday, the severe fatigue settled into ordinary exhaustion.

Fatigue is different from exhaustion. Fatigue means your nervous system is trapped in a chamber of little ease where it is too restless to lie still but too tired to use up the energy.  Exhaustion only means that you have no energy left. Fatigue means that no quantity of rest will lead to strength. Exhaustion means your strength is depleted, and rest will help eventually. Fatigue is like a coffee machine dripping endlessly onto a hot plate with no cup in it, and exhaustion just means your cup is empty. I can manage while exhausted.

I woke up when Adrienne was already at school. There is no clock in my room, and I always leave my phone downstairs when I go to bed so I won’t scroll on social media instead of trying to sleep. But I knew it was ten-thirty because I could hear the garbage truck in the alley: they always hit this block at ten-thirty.

I thought that after Adrienne went to school, I would have a nice organized life, taking an hour to swim my laps at the rec center twice a week, taking an afternoon to go hiking every so often, finding a part time job at the craft store to make ends meet. Instead, I’ve spent most of her first few months in middle school sick with the viruses she brings home. My chronic illness has rebelled, cycling between insomnia and fatigue. I’ve gotten out to the woods to take a short hike here and there, but I’ve done nothing organized. My head is too foggy to plan what to do next.

I can only be myself right now, instead of anything I ought to be.

I have failed at everything I’ve ever done.

I was one of those clever, hyperverbal, hyperlexic children who cry at the drop of a hat and get their Narnia books confiscated by the teacher so they can pay attention to the school reader. I was taken out of school to homeschool in the sixth grade, and was already taking college courses in tenth grade. I got straight A’s in everything but math, at first. I came to Franciscan University for graduate school at twenty-one, determined to win the whole world for Christ. Instead I crashed and burned, lost my faith and found it again. Now I am a cosmic joke, chronically ill, living on gratuities, deeper in debt than I could ever hope to make in income, estranged from my family. I am a mother of exactly one exceptional child, and the child is doing very well, and I will never do very well. I am as much of a mess as ever and I always will be. But thinking about that doesn’t hurt very much just now.

I now know that one of the names for my mess is “poly-cystic ovary syndrome,” and another name for my mess is “autism.” I know that all of those conditions run in families. I know that both autism and PCOS were very difficult to diagnose until recently. And when I look back at the way so many grownups in my family behaved when I was a child, I begin to understand. I can’t excuse, but I can understand. I don’t think any peace will ever be made there, but I understand.

I now know that the name of the religion I used to practice is “cult.” The Catholic Church itself is not a cult, but certain sects within her are, and the Catholicism practiced around here certainly is. The Charismatic Renewal has always been a cult. The old Sword of the Spirit cult was shut down by the bishop, but they merely re-formed under a new name and they’re always here. But that doesn’t mean that Christ isn’t real. And it doesn’t mean that I can’t be on speaking terms with Christ. I am learning to do that.

I no longer think Christ hates me.

I think that, perhaps, my opposition to the cultlike forms of Catholicism I have known, is something that Christ and I can agree on.

I came downstairs to the messy rental house that I don’t hate anymore. I took stock of the fridge– not very full. I glared at the dryer that still needs to be repaired and mentally counted out quarters for the laundromat. I poured myself coffee and felt it work– not a burst of deceptive energy, as it does when I’m fatigued, but a slight rise in alertness as it does when I’m exhausted.

Outside it was really November. The glorious color of Autumn was all but gone. The trees were naked scaffolds, gray and black against the vibrant sky. There’ll be no color to speak of in northern Appalachia for a few weeks, and then we will make our own with the usual tawdry riot of cheap Christmas lights.

My stalker’s house stands empty.

I haven’t seen The Lost Girl since late Spring.

The neighborhood is quiet.

I like it here.

I don’t exactly like myself. I don’t think I ever will. But I find that I’ve declared a truce with myself this November.

That’s good enough for now.