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askygoneonfire Had a fairly dreadful couple of weeks. I'm still not sure if I was going through a downswing/having depression or had a particularly nasty virus or, most likely, both but today I woke up feeling OK.
Spent most of week of 16th Feb laying on sofa feeling knackered and, on Wednesday, dashing to uni campus for an emergency GP appointment because I couldn't catch my breathe. Mystified GP concluded it was either weird virus causing breathlessness, or some peculiar presentation of asthma, either way I was prescribed an inhaler and used it frequently for about 4 days before symptoms tailed off. The nurse who triaged me asked if it could be anxiety and I said I didn't feel anxious and she was happy with that but I really don't know if it was anxiety or not. It wouldn't be the first time I've had all the symptoms of anxiety without consciously feeling stressed.
That weekend was my best friend, Becky's, hen do. She's not into the pink wings hoopla, and we travelled up to her home town of Oxford to take over the pub she and her friends used to drink in as teenagers and get squiffy. I was apprehensive about the entire thing but it turned out to be a lovely weekend and I felt I got to know my fellow bridesmaids which is nice ahead of her wedding in May. It's a bit of an odd group as with the exception of 3 wives and girlfriends, I am the only outsider to join their friendship group since they were at school. I went to a wedding of another couple from this group several years ago and was the only person at the wedding who wasn't either a family member of the bride and groom, or had gone to high school with them. It's quite a compliment, and they are a lovely group, but it can feel a little strange setting foot in a group I've only been connected with for 12 years, when they have known each other for closer to 20 years.
Last week I continued to be utterly, utterly exhausted. My parents visited on Tues and Weds and due to my teaching schedule at uni I only actually spent one day with them even though they were here for 2 nights. It was nice and I didn't get aggro as I so often do around them.
Thursday and Friday I was desperately sad, and slept for hours and hours across those two days and nights. On Friday morning I realised that my building sadness over the last two weeks was due to a subconscious awareness that it should have been Lu's 30th birthday. Instead, of course, her sister, mother, and friends, all experienced - to different degrees - that gnawing sense of pointless loss for the day.
It shouldn't have been this way.
And then I learnt that Leonard Nimoy had died and I went through the peculiar distanced grief which comes with the death of a celebrity you've had such a deep, life-long connection with. Star Trek has shaped my imaginative world since I was god knows how old and watching Star Trek TOS on my brother's knee. Spock is what Star Trek TOS is all about. And Nimoy was Spock. He put so much of himself into that character and raised the entire show above the realm of cheap sci fi into the force for good and hope and dreams I know it as today. I adored his appearances in the Star Trek reboot-movies and I can't quite accommodate the idea he, and his special aura, are gone from our screens save for re-runs.
Saturday was hard too. I was still exhausted, still feeling the paranoia and anxiety I associate with a particularly brutal downswing. Forced myself out of the house to Asda which was very nearly the end of me. Home again for the evening, sadness, introspection.
And then, this morning, I woke up before my alarm and didn't feel exhausted. The fog has lifted and my brain can think. I've been accepted to a conference in Ireland in June which may well make a lovely holiday (if I can get funding from the department to go!) and I cleaned the flat and tidied the detritus of a fortnight of inaction. And then I made dinner, wrote some emails...I came alive again.
And I remember why I get up in the morning and why I speak to other human beings and why life keeps on turning.
It's been an awful couple of weeks. I want to weep for my past self, because I feel bruised from the sadness which has been following me around. It hurts. And it scares me every time it comes back, and every time it won't leave.
Spent most of week of 16th Feb laying on sofa feeling knackered and, on Wednesday, dashing to uni campus for an emergency GP appointment because I couldn't catch my breathe. Mystified GP concluded it was either weird virus causing breathlessness, or some peculiar presentation of asthma, either way I was prescribed an inhaler and used it frequently for about 4 days before symptoms tailed off. The nurse who triaged me asked if it could be anxiety and I said I didn't feel anxious and she was happy with that but I really don't know if it was anxiety or not. It wouldn't be the first time I've had all the symptoms of anxiety without consciously feeling stressed.
That weekend was my best friend, Becky's, hen do. She's not into the pink wings hoopla, and we travelled up to her home town of Oxford to take over the pub she and her friends used to drink in as teenagers and get squiffy. I was apprehensive about the entire thing but it turned out to be a lovely weekend and I felt I got to know my fellow bridesmaids which is nice ahead of her wedding in May. It's a bit of an odd group as with the exception of 3 wives and girlfriends, I am the only outsider to join their friendship group since they were at school. I went to a wedding of another couple from this group several years ago and was the only person at the wedding who wasn't either a family member of the bride and groom, or had gone to high school with them. It's quite a compliment, and they are a lovely group, but it can feel a little strange setting foot in a group I've only been connected with for 12 years, when they have known each other for closer to 20 years.
Last week I continued to be utterly, utterly exhausted. My parents visited on Tues and Weds and due to my teaching schedule at uni I only actually spent one day with them even though they were here for 2 nights. It was nice and I didn't get aggro as I so often do around them.
Thursday and Friday I was desperately sad, and slept for hours and hours across those two days and nights. On Friday morning I realised that my building sadness over the last two weeks was due to a subconscious awareness that it should have been Lu's 30th birthday. Instead, of course, her sister, mother, and friends, all experienced - to different degrees - that gnawing sense of pointless loss for the day.
It shouldn't have been this way.
And then I learnt that Leonard Nimoy had died and I went through the peculiar distanced grief which comes with the death of a celebrity you've had such a deep, life-long connection with. Star Trek has shaped my imaginative world since I was god knows how old and watching Star Trek TOS on my brother's knee. Spock is what Star Trek TOS is all about. And Nimoy was Spock. He put so much of himself into that character and raised the entire show above the realm of cheap sci fi into the force for good and hope and dreams I know it as today. I adored his appearances in the Star Trek reboot-movies and I can't quite accommodate the idea he, and his special aura, are gone from our screens save for re-runs.
Saturday was hard too. I was still exhausted, still feeling the paranoia and anxiety I associate with a particularly brutal downswing. Forced myself out of the house to Asda which was very nearly the end of me. Home again for the evening, sadness, introspection.
And then, this morning, I woke up before my alarm and didn't feel exhausted. The fog has lifted and my brain can think. I've been accepted to a conference in Ireland in June which may well make a lovely holiday (if I can get funding from the department to go!) and I cleaned the flat and tidied the detritus of a fortnight of inaction. And then I made dinner, wrote some emails...I came alive again.
And I remember why I get up in the morning and why I speak to other human beings and why life keeps on turning.
It's been an awful couple of weeks. I want to weep for my past self, because I feel bruised from the sadness which has been following me around. It hurts. And it scares me every time it comes back, and every time it won't leave.