3 months later.

I miss you guys.

That seems like the place to start.

This is definitely the longest hiatus I have taken from writing here at my blog since I started it (coming up on 10 years ago), and it was unplanned, but pretty unavoidable.

Since my sister-in-law passed 3 months ago, I've been completely absorbed in trying to make things bearable for my brother and his kids, which basically consists of me living on their couch, making sure they don't starve (or, more likely, perish from scurvy, as their interpretation of fruits and vegetables runs more to the 'by the foot' and/or  'fry/chip' variety), pretending my 2nd major in social work 10+ years ago is an acceptable form of grief counseling, and making sure they don't live in filth. (My brother was ever the slob, and devastating grief did not make him MORE likely to pick up after himself.)

I'm not doing it on my own (there are a lot of us on the support staff) but a lot of times - when my niece is shivering her way through an anxiety attack at midnight, or my nephew is having a mini-breakdown that we're both pretending is all about school, or my brother is upstairs wailing his grief away and I can't go up and comfort him or even leave and give him privacy - it can feel like I am.

Normally, periods of emotional upheaval leave me itching to write, and this last little while was both no exception, and so much of an exception you wouldn't believe. There were times I felt as if if I didn't write, I might explode, and there were times were I felt like any words I could possibly write were too small, too insignificant, too useless. Mostly, though, I've just been too exhausted to parse any words at all.

The amount of spoons that this all takes - physically and mentally - is overwhelming. It's a 24-hours a day position, with no breaks or breathers, most times. My niece needs constant reassurance that everyone she loves is not going to just disappear, sometimes to the point of needing to be near me for hours at a stretch, constantly touching and talking and... that is not a thing I am physically capable of doing, most days, but I do it anyways.  My brother needs someone to run herd on his kids during the days he can't get out of bed, even if they're huge balls of tantruming energy, which is not in my wheelhouse, but I do it anyways. My nephew wants me to help him figure out calculus I forgot three seconds after I learned it 20 years ago, through brain fog so thick I put the controller in the refrigerator the other day. Not a great plan, but I do it anyways.

"I do it anyways" seems to be the motto right now, because shit needs doing and I'm the only one around to do it.

But this mentality (and let's face it, that's always my mentality, no matter how many times I try to change it), as you might guess, does not play well with chronic illness. I've been running on the fumes of fumes for at least two of the four months I've been here, and I keep crashing, but still have to push during the crash, because otherwise - as I previously mentioned - shit doesn't get done. And none of that stuff is optional: it's homework and 'my head hurts' and 'why isn't there any food in the house?' and three solid weeks of blizzard conditions and snow days galore. Decisions, big and small; appointments to make and cancel and try to show up at; rules to reinforce and reinforce and reinforce  - because bickering doesn't stop for migraines, and neither do dishes or meals or any of the other things that normally I would stop because it's just me and who cares, but right now it's not just me, and it doesn't stop, and that's hard.

It's all very hard, is mostly what I'm saying, and for every day I can crawl my way through without winding up in the hospital, I am super grateful.

And everybody else is on me to take care of myself better: which is a thing I want to do, a thing I know I need to do, but a thing I can't quite figure out how to do. Because asking for help is only OK if other people can provide it, and somehow everybody else is already doing the best they can here too. And I've definitely used up as much of my own reserves (ha! as if I had reserves. I had... like.... I don't know: gall? Is that a thing? I think that's the thing I mean.) as I could. I've been sicker here than I have been in years - part of it is exactly as I remember from watching these same kids as infants and toddlers, that every germ in creation is somehow called to them and then transferred to me, but another part of it is just being freaking exhausted in a way I've somehow managed to forget during (relatively) good cycles of illness.

I mean, I'm never NOT tired or sore - 20 years this past fall since that was even an option! - but I HAVE been taking care of myself and managing my illnesses for quite a while, and I've worked out all sorts of cheats to make things easier on myself, and so, I haven't had to be CONSTANTLY DOING anything for years (because I know how it wears me out, and is bad for me, and I don't do that anymore), so now, I guess I'm just remembering why. Oh yes: THIS IS THE REASON FOR ALL YOUR ADAPTATIONS, YOU FOOL. This constant exhausted feeling right here, where your brain is Swiss cheese and your white blood cells have declared themselves pacifists and your red blood cells have noped the fuck out of here, and you basically have all the energy of the lump of pillows you're trying to nest in, but you still need to get up and feed the faces of people who are still too young to manage it on their own. (Not that I don't make them do some of their own meals, but an 8-yr-old should not be in charge of feeding herself 3 meals a day, just take my word for it.)

If I've ever doubted that being a spoonie means being a warrior (and I only ever have in my own case, when it seems like the things I do are so little/adaptable in comparison to others), then those doubts are gone now. I could not be fighting any harder just to survive, and to pull these children and my brother along with me, than I am right now.

And, so, the lack of writing.

But I do feel like I'm going to explode without it, so I'm back. Even if I can't promise regularity. Even if the only thing I can promise is that when I show up, I'll have things to say.

I appreciate any of you still out there listening.