The tortoise v the hare

I had a tweet yesterday from a twitter friend (the wonders of social networking!) that I hadn’t ‘talked’ with for a while.  She had asked how I was getting on, and I’d told her much the same, plodding on, off work for a long while yet etc.  I saw her reply come through - don’t worry you’ll get better soon – and carried on with what I was doing.  Except it was only when I was skimming through my mentions later that day that I realised what she’d actually said:

“Don’t try to rush things you’ll get better sooner in the end.”

Be patient.  Listen to your body.  One step at a time.  Don’t run before you can walk.  Play the long game.  Don’t push yourself.  Take it easy.

The more I reflected on it, the more pertinent Julie’s comment seemed.  My yellow energy-low warning light has come on more than a few times in the last month or so, and on several occasions my body has slammed the brakes on hard.  With even the reserve tank drained, no amount of will power can conjure up even an ounce of additional fuel (to stick with the car analogy).  For various reasons, necessity, bad planning, over ambition, frustration, mental well-being, and perhaps most tellingly: impatience, I have asked more of myself recently.  In some instances, it has paid off, and I’ve been able to do things I hadn’t thought possible.  On others, I’ve ended up an immobile over-emotional teary wreck.  And occasionally, both.

Have I been sacrificing my physical well being in an attempt to deal with the mental effects of nearly two years of chronic illness; pushing myself beyond my physical limitations for the sake of getting my head in a better place?  Or actually is the reverse true?  By repeatedly asking too much of my body, am I setting myself back, in turn leading to exactly the sort of emotional problems I was trying to alleviate in the first place?

Maybe the answer is to think more about the long term.  Build a solid foundation rather than rushing things for the sake of another day, another week, another month; finding what I thought was a concrete base is actually a pile of dust.  I’ve always been ambitious, driven and worked hard.  Sitting quietly and letting the future come to me doesn’t come naturally but it is something that the last two years has tried to teach me. 

I’m waiting to find out in the next few weeks if my local PCT will provide funding for a new treatment.  Then there's the decision to make: do I go ahead with the heavy duty full-artillery drug which may lead to my recovery, but with possible long term health issues and side effects, or do I trust my body to heal itself slowly but surely in it's own time?  Its the age-old fable of the tortoise and the hare.  I don't yet know what the answer is and change my mind multiple times every day, but for now all I can do is sit and wait, and in the wise words of Gary Barlow (and Julie) - have a little patience.