August 29, 2017

Greetings My Friend,

The weekend of hanging out with friends, Debbien Boogie and Terrie is over and I realize I took on too much, although I would do it again. My weekend of fun reminds me of my inability to hang tough anymore and those 2 days brought on a couple of days to regroup. Saturday I spent going out to eat with Debbie and Boogie, then we shopped till we dropped which was only 2 stores. I found several good buys at the thrift store for my new wardrobe of wearing dresses only. As I bring home the dresses, I get rid of more clothes that is in my closet right now. Junior built the closet when we moved into our 1920's farm house since most people back then did not have a closet. The bedroom we are in is going to be the spare bedroom and in the future the other bedroom will become our master bedroom so he built the closets rather small, smaller than the 1950's closets. The longer I live with this tiny closet I find I don't really want to own a ton of clothes anymore. My habit has become, when I buy new clothes, I go through my closet and donate the same amount of clothes I will be putting into the closet, this way my closet does not get over crowded. When Junior gets around to renovating the other bedroom my thought is I don't want a closet any bigger than the one I have now, I have even felt it would be nice to get an antique wardrobe instead of building a closet. I was over tired when I got in so I put some lavender oil in the difuser, made a cup of chamomile tea which began to relax me. I was over excited from all the fun we had and this helped me settle down so I could get to sleep. Terrie showed up Sunday morning to take me to church, I hung out with Terrie after church at her house until evening Bible study. I loved that time as well. We talked, her eyes did not glaze over like Junior's do from all the chatter I had, in fact Terrie had as much chatter as I did. What was nice about being at Terrie's is we hung out in the recliner's Terrie even found a blanket and a pillow for me to snuggle in. I find snuggling in with a blanket when relaxing to be almost like comfort food to me, kind of like mashed potatoes when I am stressed. After evening Bible study was over and I was home again I felt the "crash"  starting to hit me. I cat napped all evening, I could not stay awake if I wanted to, eventually I woke up for a couple of hours before I went to bed. This is the point I realized that I am not able to travel like I used to. I had the tiredness of the end of a vacation after 2 days of crazy running and I knew that I had made the right decision to not go with Junior to Michigan. Monday found me sleeping late, I had a little more energy to get a few jobs done then I slept for several hours, waking up from my nap took awhile to get awake although I still had a need to sit on the recliner. Many people deal with chronic fatigue that have chronic illness like I have with my Parkinson's disease. People that don't understand the exhaustion we feel and think we are lazy, trying to get out of work, or want attention. The fact is we fight hard to be energetic, we miss being involved in life like we once were. Many of us learn to manage our energy, like not going shopping all day or hanging out with a friend or traveling. I can stay home, manage my activity level and still have days where I can barely get off the couch. I knew I was going to crash when I set up my girlfriend dates but it was worth the exhaustion. Debbie, Boogie and Terrie all struggle with chronic fatigue too, we all have chronic illnesses so we understand when we have to cancel plans at the last minute. Debbie has asthma extreme asthma, Boogie is older is slowing down and has health issues while Terrie has diabetes, each of these illnesses all have chronic fatigue problems as well. I will take it easy for awhile I know that I will get that desire to travel, go out for a fun few days, I am still young enough to want to have time outs from day to day routines and I also know when I go hard I will crash and I am okay with it, the memories are worth it to me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet