Relationship Headache

From Tumbling Rams SLMeredith

We are two entirely different people to the ones yesterday.The ostensible reason is CFIDS. Perhaps it isn’t that so much as how our roles necessarily change and uncharted limitations are stretched.

After a happy week of feeling above CFIDS – the familiar creeping pains and fogs are crowding the skull like a pouring tap of trampling rams. My strengths simmer beneath and my faults rise to the surface - Irritability leading the pack.   I accept help ungraciously  but hastily change tack as I notice my reflection as a cantankerous old man. I endeavour to communicate. I explain that I feel like I have a tiny person inside screaming and pushing against this coffin of a lumbering body. Al surprises me with her patience and understanding (again) and reminds me that perhaps that body has something to teach me. The body is as much me as my will that bounces around trying to beat against it. I feel better quickly and cease to wriggle from the inside.

Most of us will have to deal with these kinds of frustrations as we get older and we are lucky in a way, to have to start now. Al and I are both building new parts of ourselves. I am not known for accepting help and Al is independent and fast-paced. I am genuinely in awe of how she rises to these challenges though we agree that it makes no difference who is in what seat; we could well be swapping over in the future. We are on a long road but - as commonwealth citizens hanging on for a royal telegram - we have have seventy years to get there...