Friday 2 June 2017

June 2, 2017 Chautauqua

 


Beth's Ponderings

   According to folk wisdom, if you hear a message or song, or read the same phrase in different resources,, or see a particular sign, three times it is very important and you should pay close attention.

   Well, for the last four years I’ve been told I need to slow down, take it easy, rest more, and other variations of that theme.  Okay, to be totally honest, I’ve heard that message longer than four years, but it’s been louder, and more often, in the past four years since I totally collapsed, most particularly in the past year.  Occasionally, the message has been accompanied by an implied, or spoken, “...or else…” statement.

   Now, in my defence, I honesty thought I had slow down, and I have been resting for a good three-quarters of my time, but still it didn’t seem enough as I kept hearing the message to slow down and rest over and over again from various sources.  And, I’d counter that if I slowed down any more, I’d be at a stand-still.

   I wasn’t...it was worse.

   The end of February my mom fell and broke her right elbow (yes, she’s right-handed), and I wasn’t able to physically cope with the situation on top of my own health issues, and my cries for help were ignored.  When I reached a crisis point, I found myself - not standing still - flat on my back unable to stop crying for a month and a half!  Bone-deep exhaustion didn’t even come remotely close to describing how I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally.

   You’d have thought I had hit rock bottom at that point, but no, I seemed to merely be bouncing around it, as I managed to go down even further!  This was, in part, because I was still doing the paper deliveries each time, even though I was supposed to be in bed.

   Resting, slowing down, taking it easy, and stopping became my only option as I had absolutely no energy reserves left to do anything else. I am required to rest for much longer if I want to recover.

   The good news is that this time of rest is slowly giving my body a chance to recover, rebuild, and replenish itself.  And thankfully I do have people helping me out now, which I really appreciate.

Beth

 

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