I first heard this expression in Shrek 2 (2004) and it always stuck with me. Either you’re working your butt off (which I did for school) or you’re being lazy (which I did a lot too). Whatever I thought it meant, it’s all changed. From days of not being to work at all, to days of overworking myself. It’s good to look for the middle ground, especially when you deal with chronic pain or illness. Your downs will be plenty, and on the good days, you just want to do everything you couldn’t do on your bad days. Trying to compensate isn’t going to do your health any good. Just doing your best is good enough. Save some of your energy to have fun too, and to take care of yourself. Not using up all your energy is also a form of self-care.
This year has been crazy. After a neck injury starting in March, I injured my wrist six weeks ago. I had a lot of downtime, but I still made progress. I’ve been feeling a little better the last few days and made big progress, more than I did before. I thought I’d finish my work before the deadline. Until I woke up on Tuesday morning. I didn’t sleep well, and the joints in my back and injured wrist acted up again. If I could, I would’ve stayed in bed all day because of the pain. I knew I’d get no work done. It really bugged me, especially since the last few days went so great. From ‘working hard’ to ‘hardly working’ in just one night.
It happens. I knew it could, because it happened before, many times. All I can hope for is a quick recovery. I’m taking pain killers again and somehow I always seem to get side effects. So I’d rather go without pain killers, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to walk Shiro if I hadn’t taken pain killers. It’s hard because I really want to work, but doing so would be pushing me and my limits. It would exhaust me to the point where recovery takes even longer.
There’s only a small bit left to do, and I really hope I can fix it before December first. I have a big announcement that Friday and I’m really excited to share this news with you. I hope I’ll see you then, in better health.
