My husband and I are just home from a week in Yorkshire with our daughter and our dogs. It was wonderful. We were very lucky with the weather, our accommodation — a converted cowshed dating back to 1653 — was just lovely, and our trip there and back was uneventful: the best kind of journey to have. But it was also a sad trip for me in many ways.
We had arranged for a decorator to paint the entire house while we were away. It was all organised at the last minute so the days before we left were filled with tidying, cleaning, and moving *stuff* to storage instead of packing and looking forward to the trip. I was completely exhausted and in huge amounts of pain before I even began to think about actually doing anything in Yorkshire.
In the past, I would tell my friends who lived nearby my holiday destination when I’d be visiting and hope to see some of them while I was in the area. This time, I kept my trip to myself. My illness seems to have worsened exponentially over the past couple of years. I can no longer make plans with any confidence that I’ll be able to follow through with them. I really had to push myself to get in the car last week and I was done before I really started.
A couple of days in we needed to pick up a few groceries at the supermarket. We drove to Ripon and I went into Sainsbury’s with my daughter while my husband entertained the dogs outside. I didn’t go around the whole supermarket. We had a list and only went to the aisles where the items we needed were. We hadn’t picked up our second item before the pain in my hip and my back, and the exhaustion from this paltry effort, meant I had to let my daughter scoot round while I slowly hirpled out the store.
And that was me. For the rest of the week. I encouraged my family to go out and about, to visit places, go for coffee, and walk the dogs while I stayed in and rested.
I had only recently come to terms with the fact that the old Nettie was dead, along with all her hopes and dreams. I found it freeing. I no longer felt under any pressure to achieve the things that healthy people did and I found new, smaller dreams. Now, it seems that I have to let go of Nettie 2.0 and see what this next iteration is capable of. I am so very sad about that, and just a little bit angry.
But I’ll cope because I always do, eventually.
Incidentally, the house looks lovely and colourful and once the new carpets are fitted at the end of next week and we get all our *stuff* back from storage, I can relax. I hope.
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