I am living half a life. Maybe not even that much….a quarter of a life. I get up each day and push myself to work and I give it my all, except that my all is not what it used to be, so the work I do is not as good as the work I used to do. More about work later.
But that’s it…that’s all I can do. Then I come home and just want to sit…just want to sleep. I have a six year old boy who has a mom who has never “played” outside with him, unless we are in the swimming pool. I’ve never kicked the soccer ball with him. I’ve never run around the yard with him. I’ve never jumped on the trampoline with him. I can’t. At 372 pounds, I can’t do much of anything except for ache in my back and my knees and struggle with an achilles tendon which feels like it’s about to blow. And sleep. So many Saturday’s since Nathan’s birth have been lost to sleep, for me. Sure, I have MS and there is fatigue that comes with that. But I am lying to and kidding myself if I blame everything on the MS. Truth is, I guess I feel like I’m just looking for something else to blame my inevitable death on. This is where I’ve come…I’m waiting to die. I’ve become okay with it…accepting of it…on some days, even welcoming.
I’m 42 years old, and I believe my live is mostly done. This is so wrong. It’s not fair to Nathan. And it’s fucking not fair to me.
I used to love to do my hair and put on makeup, but I don’t anymore. I look like the bedraggled woman I am, struggling to make it from one moment to the next. I don’t like to look at myself in the mirror, because the reflection haunts and horrifies me. Why bother putting makeup on the face that rests atop this awful, awful body.
Climbing steps for me is like a marathon. It hurts everything I have, and when I get to the top I just want to cry. So there are no ballgames for me….no going to places where I know there will be steps to climb.
I haven’t been in a picture with my child since he was around 4. I haven’t been in any pictures at all since last September. It is almost like I am making a world in which I just never existed.
I fear 400 pounds like I’ve never feared anything else. There is a voice inside of me that tells me that once I hit 400, I’m done. I will be confined to bed and people will bring me my food and then when I go to the bathroom someone will have to wipe my ass.
Yeah. It’s that bad, here inside my head. But I find that writing it makes me mad. It makes me want to be different…to have a different life. I don’t know how to get to the place where I actually believe that can happen, though. I feel as imprisioned by my fear and my doubt as I do by the fat that covers me.
So, you know, if you are the praying sort, I would not be opposed to a couple of them said on my behalf. I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to lose more time.
