Hiatus

Maybe it’s the change in weather as the Autumn leaves start to fall, but I’m in hiatus.

I’ve been frantically busy for a month and now I’m feeling that energy hangover. From my aching joints, to my slow-moving limbs, I am tired.

I feel distanced from the world at times like this. Cocooned in some strange fabric, and any connection I have to make jars with that fluidity.

Sound is harsher, change is more difficult to deal with, everything is more than a step away, I have to reach for it.

I can feel my brain just ticking over in the background. It’s slightly burnt out, not badly, not extremely, just a bit. It needs to idle for a while.

To soothe it I throw it into logic puzzles. Sudokus are always a favourite. Find the hardest I can, refuse to pencil in any possibilities, only certainties, and watch my brain circle around and around until it latches on to the pattern. Holding all those numbers in my head to the exclusion of all else, until it’s done.

Or quietly making things from paper or fabric or whatever it is I’ve chosen today. I’ve recently found the joys of clay. Plunging my hands into the cool smoothness and tearing out shapes in sweeping waves.

Soon minutes, hours, days will pass and something will spark, and my turned-in problem-solving will turn outwards again, and I will reconnect by questing tendrils to as much as I can, for as long as I can.

Before diagnosis I would have trampled these thoughts. I would have rubbished my need for downtime, I would have forced those thoughts outwards, pushing my way into the world against the tide. I would have barrelled on through the pain, clinging on to the fact that other people don’t need what I need. Berating and hating myself for my failures.

I didn’t understand that other people don’t put as much energy into things as I do. I didn’t understand that they were always running at a comfortable speed. I didn’t understand that I was screeching my engine, whilst they pottered along seemingly at the same speed.

Now I will yield to it. I will rest and recharge. I will still do things I want to do, but I will know the consequences at a time like this.

As much as I can I will fly my balloon as high as possible, and then slowly sink back towards the Earth, fully enjoying the sights. I will not drag myself down against the breeze and give myself a bumpy landing.

Give me a wave as I float past.