Fatigue

Since 1996, I have been struggling with a disease that causes a baseline weariness in my body. I have no memory of what it feels like to not have to combat this fatigue from the moment I open my eyes in the morning until I go to bed at night. It is best described as wearing lead shoes all the time.

Those who have never experienced this type of illness cannot imagine what it is like. I was a nurse for twenty years before this happened to me. It was a stunning revelation when it did. I began remembering many patients and many pep talks I delivered throughout my career in a sincere attempt to encourage. Once afflicted with this chronic weariness, I wondered if my best professional intentions simply seemed like bullying to my patients. That thought briefly caused me sadness and regret.

Fatigue is a good teacher. It certainly has prepared me for old age which is rapidly approaching me. Tolerance of this impediment to my energy level has made me generally more forgiving and more patient. Getting the important things done with whatever energy is available has become an easy selection process as life's endless contingencies continue to happen.

I am amused by those I meet who have not experienced this kind of disability. When I encourage them to conserve their energy and utilize it wisely while they have it, they look at me quizzically. They believe, as I once did, that their well of energy is inexhaustible. In my experience, these folks have the toughest time with aging or trauma when it comes along in some undeniable form. They often attach a certain morality to health or disease. They will eventually learn otherwise.

My practice of physical health maintenance and mental maintenance does not fatigue me. My practice is the treatment for what ails me in this human condition. I see going to my gym as a privilege. There have been times when I have been so immobilized that going to a gym was impossible. I see meditation as a gift to the mind. There have been times when meditation was the only process that brought me back from suicidal thoughts or excruciating pain.

I offer this reflection to alert those of you who are turbines of boundless energy as a primer on the inevitability of change in life. Too often our war-loving media frames hardship as a battle against some unnatural evil. This can encourage people to set up an unnecessary belligerence against their own bodies and minds. In my experience, acceptance of the inevitability of disease and death has yielded more incentive to make the best of what I have in the moment. It has allowed me to spend less time fighting with myself and more time to get on with the business of being my best with what I have.