Sometimes it is easy to just get on with things to start your day secure in your daily timeline, knowing that once you reach that point or the one after, that you will be rewarded with food or asleep, then there are other days. Those days we all know, when doing what you should just doesn’t sound like fun of any sort, or days when all you want is to be alone and hide from the world, not out of fear, but more out of a need to be solitary, to look inwards instead of out. I never used to understand the concept of “duvet days”, why would anyone want to just lie in bed, when there was so much that needed doing, so many tasks not completed and so many joys to still enjoy. From age 12 to now, I have only ever taken two holidays, one not long after I met Adam when we went camping and of course, our honeymoon, when we repeated our first holiday. All other holidays had one purpose, time to clean, to decorate, to make my home perfect again until I could get enough time off to do it all again. Every weekend and every evening was spent on our home, work meant I had a fraction of the time I really wanted to do what needed doing, so a day in bed, well it wasn’t feasible and I couldn’t understand how it was for anyone else either. So being forced into taking life at a slower pace, having more time on my hands than I know what to do with, well it has surprised me in just how my views have changed.
I strangely now understand all to well the point of spending time just lying in bed, in fact, I know that I can now lie there awake, but not moving a single muscle for hours, not even realising just how much time has passed. Sometimes I guess I do fall asleep, but others there is no doubt in my mind at all that I have been awake the entire time. There is a joy of just letting your brain wander, in not thinking about anything of importance, or anything of any structure to it and I totally believe that it is just as refreshing as sleep, if not mores so when it comes to your mind. I couldn’t lie there like that forever, but once or twice a week, well I would recommend it to everyone. I have even noticed that although when I am lying there I am ultra aware of all the strange sensations and pains there are happening to my body, when I eventually get up, I do seem to have just about as much time, not pain free, but with much lower levels, almost as though my body has formed a painkiller all of its own. I was always guilty of living like a bluebottle, but that was the way I was brought up, doing nothing just wasn’t allowed, we always had to be doing something of purpose, even if that was sitting reading a book, it didn’t really matter what, but nothing wasn’t allowed. Strangely I see more and more people these days wasting their lives never doing nothing, they are constantly attached to their smart phones or tablet, walking down streets, sitting in front of their TV’s and eating their meals, still with one eye and one hand attached to those gadgets. I know without the slightest doubt that I would have done exactly the same if my health was good, I to would still be answering emails, checking the readouts from my PC’s at work or just playing games, to the last second before I had to sleep, I would have fitted right into this new generation.
No one knows what cause any of the conditions I live with, I didn’t do anything apparently to cause them, but I can’t help wondering at the fact that they seem to all be modern condition, there is little or no sign of them even just a hundred years ago. I can’t help but wonder if one of the catalysts, isn’t quite simply the way and speed we now live our lives at. A hundred years ago we lived in line with the length of day given to us by the sun, lighting and heating our homes was expensive, so sleep and rest was the normal answer throughout winter, keeping our main activity time to just the summer. These days we never stop, going home doesn’t end our working days and more women than men suffering could simply be explained by the fact women now try to do both their traditional role, plus also a full-time job away from their home.
I have no choice but to rest these days, I once thought that it would be that alone that would drive me insane but here I am still alive, still coping and far happier than I ever thought I would be. I now do what my body wants and no it hasn’t made me well, but it has made me content, calm and at ease with life and the world. I never thought I could be this calm, this content, I never thought that just resting, doing absolutely nothing could be such a positive thing to do. I can’t turn the clock back, but if I could, I know for certain that the one thing I would change, would be the speed and intensity that I lived my life with, I would make space for holidays, for days off and even for “duvet days”. I would come home from work and not log into the office PC to keep an eye on things until the call centre closed. I would make a point of stopping completely every day for as long as I could before I had to sleep.
I doubt one single person reading this will change anything about their lives, just because they read this, but I wish that you all did, I wish you would switch all those gadgets off, that you would spend time with those you love, real time not just half of it. I wish you would also make a time of night to turn off the TV as early as 9 pm then enjoy your rest, enjoy the silence and enjoy your sleep. I have not the slightest doubt that you too would find far more happiness, far more contentment more point to life than you ever thought there was. I also believe that your health would improve as well and maybe you might just avoid the later of years of your life from being lived like mine.
Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 12/05/12 – A timeline for MS?
Two Rooms Plus Utilities 