Pausing Paid Subscriptions

This is not the post I planned to write when I shared that I’ve been operating in survival mode and had an outline started to tell you about some changes I wanted to make.

I got off track with the schedule of content I’d set for paid subscribers here over the holidays. Finding it more and more difficult to keep up, I told myself I’d get back into the swing of things after the New Year. But then producing all the new classes in January had me pushing that promise to February. February would be the month I could finally sit back down and figure out a plan for the new year.

But now I have Covid and this go round with the virus has been a doozy.

I have taken about a million showers trying to break the fever/chill/body pain cycle, renewing my dream of one day living in a home with a tankless water heater, or at least having one big enough to fill the entire tub with hot water for a good soak. I can scarcely keep my eyes open, but sleep has been elusive. Coughing the most unproductive hack of a cough until my throat feels like it’s covered in tiny razor blades.

The intensity of the skull crushing head pain the first night was only eased with a constant rotation of ice packs, and last night it felt like every infection or injury I’ve ever experienced had returned with a vengeance, along with widespread neuropathy pain. The body feeling like one big throbbing cartoon of a smashed thumb, but very aware of each individual swollen with inflammation part.

Today I listened to Katherine May interviewing Gavin Francis, a physician and author of the book Recovery: The lost art of convalescence and it struck me, the timing of it, with the thoughts I’d been rolling around. How much I’ve slipped back into the mindset of beating myself up for not managing to keep up with it all. For not just bouncing back from burnout ready to rock and roll.

Dr. Francis spoke of the need for the time we used to historically pad into healthcare for resting, after the disease was conquered, or the injury had healed, as the real recovery time, resonating deeply with one line in my notes for that post I had planned to write, which I guess is this post now, on surviving burnout but never really getting out of burnout, more like precariously clinging to a ledge looking back into that dark pit.

Living with chronic illness and disability mean these past few days have not been unfamiliar. Saying the words “chronic illness and disability” may sound cringy, but say them we must, until they no longer conger notions of someone who has given up on life, or is lesser than in some way. No longer being equated to someone who is lazy and leaning on excuses for sympathy. The sad reality in the aftermath of the past three years of the Pandemic, and the increase in those suffering with long covid, is that many more people can now relate.

How easy it is to say “get some rest, take it easy” without acknowledging that we live in a society without the safety nets that make rest and recovery possible for everyone. Without proper health coverage, or a job that offers paid leave, stable housing, or a partner who can fill in the gap when we need.

At once, I am feeling the toll this takes on my body, feeling somewhat depressed, somewhat hopeless at times, if I’m being honest, and simultaneously, I am keenly aware of my own privilege. That which comes from having built up this career over the years so that I actually have something I can push myself hard to do and a community who is ready for it. So many people living with chronic illness and disability do not have this. So many struggle to find menial work they can manage with their own limitations and when they do, it is often for pitiful wages.

Yet living in the constant state of this push push push, living in survival mode, trying to recover any semblance of capacity, while continuing to produce enough to make ends meet is not sustainable. Stating that without having a solution seems taboo, but there it is. If there is one thing that I’ve learned over the years, its that cycles aren’t broken when we don’t let ourselves talk about them.

It strikes me too, even as I begin to wind down with this post, that the word Recover is in the title of my book. Looking at what it means to Recover my voice, reminds me that I have to let go of the idea that I need to have this all figured out. Taking the next step, following that voice inside to do what feels like the next right thing to do, is all any of us really have control over.

The next right thing for me is to put paid subscriptions for this blog on hold. I don’t plan to stop writing, but this means if you are a subscriber at the membership level, you won’t be charged until I’m ready to start again.

Doing this is a bit like releasing a pressure valve. With the feeling that I’m hopelessly behind schedule in what I’ve promised you hanging over my head, it is near impossible to really identify what I need to make this a more sustainable, and dare I say it, a pleasurable practice for me.

Thanks everyone,

Crystal Marie