Current mood:

tired

"Please, I'm sorry, can I have a seat?"
I stumbled forward, tears leaking out of my eyes and spilling onto my shirt. The pain was bad, bad enough to make me cry, and every time the train lurched my knees and my hips and my ankles and my foot-bones and my toes screamed for relief. The hand holding the overhead bar lanced pain, and my wrist cracked a lightning-burst of pain every time I adjusted my grip. The hand holding the cane tried to keep me steady, but the ride was choppy. The car wasn't as packed as it could have been, but every seat was taken, and when I got on everyone pretended to ignore cane-girl with her two bags and awkward gait. I stood for two stops, but my legs couldn't hold me up anymore. I stumbled forward, tears bursting loose, and made my request.

A middle-aged man jumped up immediately. He was the only one. However, when I sat down, a girl in front of me took off her headphones, saw me crying, and dug a tissue out of her purse. "Thank you," I said to nobody in particular, and my voice broke on "you". I hated myself. I hated my weakness. I hated my desperate need for the charity of offered seats, of free tissues, of pity. I rode the rest of the way to my station in silence, crying without sound.

**********

The office's annual picnic was a few days ago. I shot some hoops with the guys until every knuckle in my hands began to burn, then played a little badminton. I was clumsy and slow, hesitant to move, anticipating the pain and wincing when it came. When I sat down to rest I couldn't get up again until it was time to leave. I tried to carry on a conversation with a couple of coworkers, acting like nothing was wrong, but I know I was pale and withdrawn. The burning threatened to swamp my senses, and I had to concentrate to hold it back. When I did leave I walked slowly and deliberately, like an old woman, across the field to the car.

Work is a constant balancing act. I want to pretend I'm fine out of pride, but I don't want expectations to be so high I can't deliver on them anymore. I settle for walking the way I really feel - a little pep in my step sometimes, other times slow and leaning heavily on the cane. When my sleep is disrupted I'm late. I can't help it. I tried to describe once how sometimes getting out of bed is like climbing Everest, but someone said that everybody has those days. I didn't argue with him, but I thought about the dizziness, the pain so strong it's a nausea, the knowledge that I am already an hour late, and the inability to even stumble to the bathroom.

**********

I was picking up my cable modem yesterday, and there was a dojo next door. I'd already read about these guys, this odd strip-mall chain store of martial arts masters, a brand stretching from coast to coast. They teach kenpo, my beloved old style. I wandered inside. The black belt who took me into the office was of a type I know well - larger-than-life personality, bursting with people skills and the energy to use them for awesome. He reminded me of my first sensei. Which is probably why I agreed to a free lesson at their nearer location, in Old Town, with Holly-sensei. Also of a bouncy, effusive type, she heard my story, took me through some forms, and showed me their jaw-dropping price structure.

I signed anyway. I'm so tired of hating myself, of being weak. When I took kenpo in middle and high school I was strong and confident. It gave me the nerve to try new things, to take risks, to plunge ahead with life instead of holding back, afraid. I would pay dearly to have that again. So now I'm of course worried about money, but maybe I can counteract it with the peace that comes from confidence, from inner strength. My personal finance blogs tell me this is the time when I should be saving, putting every cent I can scrape up into my emergency fund, the several retirement plans I am assured I must have. But when the future feels so bleak, it's hard to save. It's hard to look forward more than a week, maybe a month if I try. Something's trickling into my government retirement account, and maybe that's all I can manage right now.

I keep going because keep going is what I do. It's what kept me from dropping a major that was perhaps too hard for me, it's what drove me to push myself until I ruined my health. Sometimes it's a liability, other times it's a survival trait. But the moment I get a little energy the ambition-wyrm stirs within me, telling me I have to work harder, experience more, learn more, give more, earn more, do more. What I'm doing is never enough. I push and push because anything less is giving up, is letting the pain win, is sliding backward into a hole with no ladder and no bottom.