running pause

I just did my last run for a few weeks, a 10k trail race in Sequoia park. I have to go back on antibiotics for the Lyme, Ect. again and one of the antibiotics, aimed at Bartonella, can weaken tendons and ligaments and put them at risk to rupture. I’ll only be on it for a couple of weeks, but I see no reason to create any unnecessary stress on them. So for the time being, I’ll be beginning Qi Gong, meditating and walking.

It was a rough run for me. I think back to my first trail race two months ago and how I practically flew that day. As I was running, I felt that this was exactly what I was built to do. And today? It was a struggle, like somebody was clinging to me and pulling me back. I felt like I really should have stayed in bed and rested today though lately I feel like that every day. That’s the nature of running, you can’t always count on hitting the high note even though you do all you can in your training to set yourself up to hit it. And it’s also the nature of dealing with a chronic illness. I can do all that I know to do to keep me healthy, strong and energized and then it knocks me back again.

I had so much fun today on the trails (no matter how hard it is out there, it’s always so beautiful), but it was brunch with my running crew + friends afterwards that was the real highlight. A table full of bright people, tons of ideas and so much laughter. I needed that infusion of inspiration into my life.

Lately, I’ve been keeping a very low profile, just trying to keep it together to go to work and take care of myself. Chronic illness requires constant management. I’m always checking in with myself and evaluating just how much energy I have and if doing more than the bare minimum is worth the aftershocks of poor health. I keep one eye constantly turned inward and have that much less attention and energy focused on the world around me and my place in the world. When I began getting sick again this time, I felt like a shadow had passed over me and wouldn’t move on. I felt heavy and polluted, weighted down and held back from living fully. I had forgotten just how hard it is. Sometimes, when I go out, I get an insight into how healthy people live and how unfettered their lives are and I become acutely aware of how much illness has taken from me.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t also see it as a blessing. It has been, in many ways, a gift in that it has forced me to turn inward and become more honestly myself. I’ve learned so much about the body and about healing and it has set me on a quietly spiritual path. I have made peace with death so live with a little more presence than I did before. It has fostered a thirst to experience all that I can from life. That said, when I began to get sick again, it scared me so much that I couldn’t even deal with it for the first six weeks. I finished a two week course of antibiotics and the fevers, the chills, the sweats, the fatigue, the headaches, the arthritis and muscle cramps went away. I’m due to start the next course and as much as I hate being on antibiotics (as they create a whole host of other problems), I’m looking forward to being on them again as the scary, neurological symptoms are beginning to rear their ugly heads.

This past year is when I have come the closest to being completely healthy. I had two glorious months of being full of energy. In this journey towards health, what I find the most difficult is how awkward I’ve become around people. I sometimes feel like a child among adults, that I missed out on pertinent information that everyone else is privy to. And I’m still coming to the point where I work a full week. I meet more and more people these days because I am beginning to rejoin the world in a very real way and I find it difficult to explain myself when people can’t know what I’ve been through. People pass harsh judgments easily and I don’t exactly fit into any societal norm anymore.

Going back on antibiotics feels very much like I’m losing ground, against Lyme, Ect., in my life, with my running. I can hardly believe that I’ll be able to tie my shoes on again with any confidence anytime soon.