Delaying tactics

Day 302

There is a space between the past and the future where one is not necessarily present. A waiting room of a place, a limbo, a holding area. This is where I am firmly ensconced. Part of me is happy with this state of affairs, part of me wants to scream. I imagine myself battering on the windows, fists flailing, a primal yell erupting. I also see a waiting chair, where I meditate quietly, allowing the old to become the new in it's own good time.

I have no paintings to produce, and no studio to experiment in. No funds to buy paint with either, come to that. My first book is waiting in a pile on a publisher's desk, (take your time, Emily, give it a chance to grow on you), and my second has progressed enough for me to see how many re-writes it is likely to need, (I'm hoping only about four).

Meanwhile, time pootles along and the sense of urgency I once had is swallowed up in a deep pool of exhaustion, boredom, housekeeping and family problems. I am hemmed in by other peoples lives, ergo, I see no space for my own. Small niggles are starting to overwhelm me. The mess has crowded out all other thoughts. I have no creativity, only a longing, a yearning, and a tiredness that is bone-deep.

Tears sit to attention, ready for 'the off' like good little soldiers. My feet and back have gone on strike. They have withdrawn their support until working conditions improve. My eyes are traitors. Everywhere I look I am reminded of something I want but can't have - a clean place to sit, a project finished, a dream realised, a space of a few hours where there is literally nothing that I am supposed to do.

There is a growing list waiting for me which, at time of going to press, includes buying sawdust and cleaning out the guinea pigs, giving them baths and cutting Sandra's hair, the laundry, this weeks ironing and last weeks, packing away my painting stuff and getting out my sewing stuff, cleaning the bathroom and hoovering the stairs, laying the lino in the bathroom and making and hanging the roman blind, tidying up everywhere, weeding the garden and dead-heading the flowers, taking garden rubbish to the tip and finishing off pruning the trees, buying something to stop the cherry re-sprouting where it is cut and applying it, putting weedkiller on the paths and patio, and slug pellets around the pots and hostas, writing thank-you letters for my birthday and other thank-you letters for recent hospitality from friends, writing to Arnol, our sponsored child in Honduras, packing up catalogue rejects and phoning the courier to come and collect them, feeding the cat and the family, working out menus to fit our very limited budget and doing the food shopping and the cooking, turning on lights and opening curtains because our house is too dark, making the bed and sorting out all the stuff that didn't get sorted out when I changed the room around so I could paint, putting the loo-roll on the holder because nobody else does, picking some flowers to put in the house so it feels more like a nurturing place, picking up a book from the library and taking others back, paying the fines, emptying the compost bin in the kitchen and cleaning out the fridge, cooker and microwave, cleaning all the insides of the windows, changing the cat litter, and washing the downstairs floors.

Steve has been doing all the washing up and a fair bit of the shopping and cooking. Although lovely, this is not taking a lot from my list, and all the time that both Sam and Steve are in the house, the mess grows ever larger.

I am helpless within it because the menopause has cranked up my PMS to unbelievable proportions, and the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has gone stratospheric. My Progesterone levels have been ridiculously low since I got ill after Sam was born. Progesterone is like Insulin, you see - part of a bio-feedback system that allows the brain to work out how much sugar is in the blood, and too little Progesterone gives a faulty reading. Consequently, the brain demands that you eat to correct the balance.

This is not hunger. I know hunger. This is a severe craving along the lines of cold turkey drug withdrawal. If I try to resist, the brain goes to it's emergency supply and produces Adrenalin to get the process going. This, the 'fight or flight' hormone, leaves me edgy, anxious, tearful, irritable, pacing the floor, unable to function or make decisions (even about what I want to eat), snappy, shaky, nauseous, and head-achey. If I persist in not eating, or am unable to get to food, it can lead to a complete system shut-down where I pretty much collapse and can't talk, or raise my arms, or even support my own head, for several hours. I've ended up in hospital like this a few times, but the doctors were baffled and unsympathetic.

To avoid this I eat, and I am now thirteen and a half stone and getting fed up with the whole process. I lie exhausted on the sofa, and I eat. I do use a Progesterone supplement but, after nearly twenty years, this is how my body is used to operating and it doesn't want to change. So I am intending to fast today because I have read that this can help with food cravings - I wish them to be back to manageable levels, a place where I don't weep on the hour, every hour, if I can't get chocolate (which I don't like that much and leaves me feeling sick). Perhaps this will at least nudge my brain into a re-think - a complete re-boot would be a lot to ask, I suspect.

A time of limbo is perhaps not such a disaster when I am as knocked out as this as, although I rest a lot, my batteries fail to recharge. My space is not nurturing and my family demanding. Seeing friends and doing things that are fun seem to help, but the effect is short-lived without a structure to support it.

The mantra that pulled me out of depression was 'This too will pass', and it is just as apposite here. When it passes, as all things must, I hope I will have learnt something other than how to blind myself to chaos, clutter and mess. That would be a sad thing.

I may have no will within me that I can harness to complete any of the chores, but I do have a cup of hot lemon. And I do have hope. It is just as well that no-one is battering down my door with commissions or contracts, and although I'm sure that would galvanise me for a while, the problem would still persist. I prefer solutions when I can, I'm not much of a one for a hamster-wheel sort of life.

I am in limbo. I am waiting. I am stuck between the past and the future. I take another sip from my cup, I look out of the window, and I hope.