Isolating

I am isolating myself from people around me ... I easily withdraw from social contacts nowadays. I feel really tired because of the treatments and my feelings are confused about it. I am blaming myself for being in a bad physical condition, telling myself I ought to excercise more, and then being unsure of how much is enough and how much is too much... and sometimes being just so exhausted that I cannot do anything. The possibility of excercising too much is a fact... my body has to recover from the treatments over and over again and it is put under extreme pressure by that task, and I should not add on it too much. I have just read a booklet about feeling exhausted during the treatments and I know it all... just don't see what is so difficult in accepting it that for once, I am so ill that it is stronger than me and I have to give in a little - I cannot go on doing this and that like I have been used in doing in spite of fibromyalgia, diabetes, blood pressure, sleeping problems, asthma... like I have said a few times, I have got one diagnose after another and went on like there'd be nothing although my body has tried to tell me otherwise. Now I must face the fact that my body is not asking me to slow down anymmore, it is slowing down whether I want it or not and OH MY GOD that it is difficult for me to accept it as it is. At first accepting it feels like submitting or giving up... but I know it is the wisdom of finding a balance. Today it feels like something that makes me cry because I cannot feel that I could ever find a balance, ever quit blaming myself of everything that has happened to me. I am crying a lot these days. If someone would ask me why I could not even tell. Maybe I feel I have failed somehow? Failed staying young, energetic, vital...



Somehow it feels like I ought to let go of my previous life and start anew. I don't mean anything else than simply accepting the facts and loving myself the way I am. I think I am doing neither right now.



On the other hand I think like this too: I don't beleive in things just happening without a reson. I got cancer because I needed it. My life like I lived it was impossible because I did not have time to take care of myself and my well-being. I must change it somehow and I have to see to that I remain in the centre of my life. Something had to happen to make me realize that I cannot go on like that and that is final and I cannot postpone the change anymore. I was burning my candle from both ends and I had been doing so for a long time.



My husband said something really beautiful and clever when I was wondering if I was too weary ("rasittava"). He said I was not weary ("rasittava") but "rasittunut" = exhausted, worn-out (by cancer and its treatments). It does not translate into English but in Finnish it was something really beautiful, the way he used those two words. It transformed me from the subject to the object of weariness.



I wish I could learn to see myself that way too.