The conundrum of being ill

Fuckery!

Happy Christmas to me! Long-Covid is showing up a LOT like fibromyalgia these days. Which means I get to take Duloxetine for nerve pain, for Christmas. It'll take 4-6 weeks for me to figure out whether it's working to curb my pain, and if the pamphlet is anything to go by, has the potential to make me feel a bit sketchy between now and then. 

So I've been signed off for 8 weeks on sick leave. Which, while I know is a thing, feels less like a doable thing when you are self-employed. Although I suspect that an unwillingness to just stop for a while is part of my overall problem, I still find it tough to let go. 

I actually sat on a group coaching call this morning with my fabulous clients and encouraged one of them to embrace her sick leave, while ignoring my own sick note that kicked in um... four days ago. 

What is this? Is is a single parent thing? A driven personality thing? An 'I know better' thing? Why don't I want to just chill with being poorly?

It's definitely, in my experience, a single parent thing. 

I don't think it's that hard to understand, actually. When I dig into the desire to keep working, there is definitely an aspect of wanting to preserve that part of myself that is more than a Mum. I've pushed msyelf and at times, yes, struggled, to keep working while ALL. THE. PLATES. SPIN because it helps me feel good about myself. I like working. 

I've dropped some of those plates, some of the time, but over the years somehow I've always managed to keep on working. 

Work has at times been my sanctuary. My 'me-space'. The place my head gets to be a grown up, a problem solver, an equal. Make no mistake, I freaking LOVE my clients. They are the BEST women and mothers, their courage and their commitment to their families always inspires me. Working with them is more often than not, and absolute joy. So yeah, continuing to work ordinarily, is at the top of my list of good things in my life. 

But right now, I have to <perhaps> sit with the fact that my constant availability to my work, is contributing to making me sick.  I'm pretty sure that this much is true: If you don't make room for your wellness, you will be forced to make room for your sickness. 

So, it may seem a bit odd (to anyone who isn't a single parent) that despite knowing it's probably quite important to slow down now... I'm giving myself four days to think about how I'm going to 'do' my sick-leave. 

This is where not taking sick-leave becomes a single-parent thing, rather than a bloody minded, or identity thing. 

I've got four days of childcare left in the bank before the Christmas holiday begins. While the idea of taking my sick-note and running with it might sound like the right thing to do here's a single Mama reality check: I don't actually have that privilege, because no-one else is going to be able to pick up the jobs I put down. Being sick, requires planning. Pushing on through is the default because frankly, it's often easier. 

To make space for my sickness means getting up tomorrow, doing all the usual school run shenanigans before I can start the admin to prepare to take my own sick leave. I'll mentally post-date the GP's instructions from Dec 9 to Dec 18. By which time I *should* have managed to set up all the things I need to set up so that I can go offline, literally and metaphorically. 

Just in time for the end of term! I'll hang with my kids til the 27th... then, and only then, will I catch a 7 day breather with no kids, no work and <deep breath, small prayer> no drama. 

This is The Bear Hunt. I can't go over it, I can't get under it, this is how I get through it. 

The Day of Reckoning

It's late. 

By which I mean it's 9.27pm, and I am a single mother of three children, so I'm absolutely flayed with exhaustion by this time of day. 

Today, especially, has been a day of reckoning with what is, what was and what will come to be. So there's also wine, and a pack of fake wotsits too. A girl's got needs. 

I'm blogging again, because, why the fuck not. I've decided that the last time life was quite this much of a shit-show blogging brought me a whole lot of joy and a little bit of self-awareness too, so I'm going to start over. The Bear Hunt is my little home on the internet where I get to just be myself, plus... 

I still can't get over it, I still can't go under it, all this fuckery is shit I've just got to get through. So The Bear Hunt remains my personal metaphor for life as a single Mum. 

And shit is getting REAL again. 

Today I applied for an IVA. I may or may not be able to get it, because despite being buried in debt repayments I cannot meet month after month, I'm actually successfully 'servicing the debt' (paying off the interest) and I only have two maxed out credit cards, not three, and I've not defaulted on my rent yet, so on paper I look like I'm managing. 

Only I'm not. Really badly not. 

2020 has been a fucker of a year. It opened with a doubly broken arm (wrist and elbow), moved swiftly into a forced eviction, followed hot on the heels by the death of my oldest friend of stage 4 cancer. Six days after her funeral I contracted Covid-19 and embarked upon a life changing period of illness, in isolation. Emotionally, I'm not sure I've actually recovered yet, 9 months down the line. 

I self-isolated with my three boys for 42 days straight, managing my own Covid symptoms, secondary infections in my chest, ears, urine tract. Ultimately developing neuropathic pain in my entire thoracic area (chest and back, ribs and neck) which remains to this day. 

My youngest, then two, suffered Covid, then croup, was given oral steroids, a blue inhaler to try and settle him down, but four months down the line went on to develop full juvenile asthma.  

My older boys didn't get so sick, but my 10yo still suffered post viral fatigue for a few months. We all suffered horribly with cabin fever. I cried, shouted, swore and stomped about some days. Others I took them on bucolic walks to play and climb trees, attempted to home educate and cooked soups from scratch. They were amazingly helpful, learned to cook, wash up and supervise their toddler brother sometimes. They also drew on the walls, hollered at the neighbours out the windows and climbed the tree and played in our garden, butt naked screamingly fun water fights, lazy lego afternoons. And a LOT of screen time. Obviously.  

Our lockdown wasn't as bad as some people had it, but I'm not going to lie, this year has been a kick in the teeth on lots of levels. I've never felt as lonely as I have this year. Nor have I felt as loved, looked after and appreciated in a strange way. 

So I count my blessings. I've got three beautiful boys, they are so loving, kind and generous. But they are obviously also total shits at times, because: children. 

Our reality today is that none of my kids see their Dads more than a couple of nights a fortnight and the odd holiday week, so more than 80% of the time (and often more) we are little gang of four. Muddling on, messing up, making up, making do, making it through. 

I remind myself to go gently on myself. They are raising me as a Mum just as much as I am raising them. 

Tonight I needed the glass of wine, and the rubbish wotsits, and a place to make a space for my own heavy thoughts. Because I still have days where I feel like I've really fucked up, and it's a lonely place to be. 

In reality, I know I haven't actually fucked anything up. If anything, I've picked up the pieces of a bloody ridiculous year (and insanely tough decade) and made something pretty ok out of it all. But tonight I just need to name my reality and see it written down. 

I've got chronic fatigue, occipital and intercostal neuralgia, as a result of post-covid syndrome. I can no longer manage to hold down the two jobs I've been working for the past two years, so I can't continue to pay all my bills and work towards paying off my debt too. The debt is the result of trying to hang on to a failing relationship with my youngest kiddos Dad, who made (and still makes) fuck all financial contribution. It's nursery fees, it's birthday presents. It's debt from my business, which I've not been able to focus on properly in the past couple of years really, because: babies, and Covid. 

And grief. 

I'm fucking tired. Like, so, so fucking tired. 

So, today was the reckoning. 

The debt plan is applied for. 

My resignation letter for the second job is penned (pending debt relief being approved) 

I'm pulling my three year old out of the nursery I can't afford, to put him into pre-school instead 9-3. 

I'm letting it all fall down. 

I'm trying to trust that I'll be able to get back up again, once I just let myself let the weight of it all go. 

Because honestly, this is finally, far too heavy for me to carry all the time.