No. I’m not having a wee one. It’s that the days feel as unpredictable as newborn days, unpredictable except for the sleepless part. But replace sleepless with restless. I sleep but I’m worn out. Forever tired. At least 8 days out of 7. And so often wondering, is this it? Is this really going to be temporary?
Getting COVID 19 was kinda shocking. We’d done so much to stay well. Loss of taste was the first marker during lunch on a Sunday in November. I excused myself from the table and began a week-long campout in my bedroom. A day or two later, my youngest joined me. We built Magna-tiles. I let her have a dance party one night so she’d get tired enough to sleep. We ate at a large plastic bin, iPad propped up so that we could FaceTime with my husband and oldest who delivered meals to the room.
11 months have slid by, almost imperceptibly, like the days between a Georgia summer and a Georgia winter. When did the leaves all fall down?
Two months prior, I buried my maternal grandmother. One month prior, I attended my 25th high school reunion. A few weeks later, I buried my paternal grandmother. Four months later, I had my first pulmonary clinic visit for persistent fatigue and shortness of breath. The next month, I got COVID again.
Is this it?
The pulmonologist can only suppose that I’ll recover by the end of year two as most long haulers do. Year two will end the end of next November. I don’t want to wait that long.
Do I suppose he’s wrong and live like this is forever until heaven? Freaking out a bit when I forget to use my inhaler or when fatigue keeps me curled up in bed or when…?
Is this it?
If only there were a cute baby face to snap pics of as I sit on my bed with my back against a pillow. Instead, there are two beautiful girls looking at me, one of them asking, “Mummy, are you still tired?”
“Yes, baby. Still tired. I’m sorry, baby. Can we play a game where I don’t have to move?”
I make what seems like progress, writing again, morning energy, and then I’m here, laying on my kids’ bedroom floor…spent. The older one threw up a bit ago. Slight fever. My husband was at the gym. I cleaned her up, switched out her mattress, made her tea, got her back into bed. Now it’s 10pm and there’s no more time for anything else. I gave my last dregs of energy pushing the full size mattress out of one room and into this one.
This will have to do.
Are you still writing? Yes, on my phone, with one thumb, in the dark of my kids’ room.
These words will have to do.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV
