What Happened to all the Time?

I used to sit and work and stare at the clock, watching the minutes tick by so slowly. I was always waiting, anticipating the next big thing, looking forward to what was next, never living in the moment.

That was before my body broke and the world turned upside down. I was always told I worked at a different speed that everyone else, I did have a "slow mode" and I liked it that way. Get it done, knock it out and move on to the next thing. I like accomplishing things. I don't like dragging out tasks and doing other things in between. Don't get me wrong, I was the Queen of multi-tasking, but I still got the primary job done quickly. It was like a sport to me...how quick can I get this done. The faster the better. I did sacrifice quality at times, which tied in to my lack of patience. It was a double edged sword because I was also a perfectionist. I didn't like making mistakes. I didn't like going slow. I found a way to be fast and accurate enough to not meltdown and life sped by.

Then everything broke and everything changed. I no longer had a say in what speed I went. There were two options slow as molasses and sleep mode. I was not happy with either. I want to do things. I want to accomplish. I don't want to be a worthless lump on the couch forever. So I started pushing myself. I could never get to the same fast speed no matter how hard I pushed, but a solid medium was attainable. It felt good to accomplish something.

Until the next day.... When my pain level was triple normal and I was so exhausted I couldn't get out of bed. Then the next day was the same. I like to consider myself a rather intelligent person, but my stubbornness makes me not super smart sometimes. I repeated this series (push too hard...pay for it for days) more times than I can count, before I learned, it wasn't worth it. I could accomplish more at the snails pace for three days than in overdrive for one day and in bed for the two the following. It was a hard lesson to swallow. It meant, it is going to take me three days to accomplish about half of what I used to do in a day. I will never be super productive again.

Simple tasks, like writing this post, would have taken me minutes in the past, yet I look at the clock now and hours have passed. Where did my time go? What was I doing? I feel like I was working and being productive, but it just takes so long to do anything. The difference is, now I don't get upset when I look at the clock. I expected it to take hours. I have had to adjust my expectations of myself. It is part of accepting that my body broke and is not fixable. I am learning to work with the pieces I have. It is like when something brakes and you tape it back together...it is never quite as good as new and never works perfectly again. But you don't expect it to because it has tape on it so you know it's broken.

Only we don't have tape. Only we know how broken we are and we have to first accept that we are broken, then learn what our new body is capable of and modify our expectations accordingly. Step 2 to the process is convincing others of our limitations, which I haven't figured out yet, but I will let you know when I do! :)

Until then, listen to your body, not your brain and be good to youself!

XOXO

-Meg