So, I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. All my blood test results from the other day came back normal, so I went back to see the doctor and he said that whilst there's no test for it as such, he would confidently diagnose me with it. Yay. Mild end of the scale, of course, some people with CFS can't walk across a room.
He told me not to run my half marathon in February. I have never wanted to ignore a doctor's advice so much, as now.
I feel a bit sad that I'm going to have to alter my lifestyle. I'm nowhere near being a typical student, I don't go out and get trashed every night (more like once every few months, if that!), but I do stay up very late talking to friends (I'm up till 2 or 3am most nights) and I recognise that that has to change.
At the moment I can't seem to work out in my head how much of a big deal (or otherwise) this is...so apologies if I come across melodramatic or blasé. Neither is intended.
Sleep, don't weep, my sweet love
Your face is all wet and your day was rough
So do what you must do to find yourself
Wear another shoe, or paint my shelf
Those times that I was broke, and you stood strong
I think I found a place where I...
Thursday 16 October 2008
Wednesday 15 October 2008
Ships that pass in the night
Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle... because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
I have been thinking about the way that people enter our lives, often largely through coincidence, and then leave again. I recently got back in contact with a friend who I used to work with; we were close, but after I went to uni we drifted apart. He is now engaged to his long-term boyfriend (last time I spoke to him, he was single) and is moving across the country to live with him. I'm not naive enough to imagine that we'll magically become best buddies, but it's nice to touch base with him again.
I'm not close with anyone I knew at primary school anymore, though we're all civil to each other and occasionally catch up via Facebook. It's almost the same with secondary school, with the exception of L and K. L and I have that sort of friendship whereby we can go weeks, months, without talking, and then pick up exactly where we left off. It's lovely to know that she'll always be there, but that we live our separate lives. However. She has been having a really rough time lately, and to my shame I didn't know when it was at its worst. In fact, the first I knew of it was when I phoned her from a train for a catchup, and she burst into tears at me. L doesn't cry. It was a shock. I'm now trying to make the effort to hold on tighter.
K had a baby a couple of years ago, and (perhaps to my shame) it is largely thanks to him that we keep in touch. I was with her when she took that pregnancy test, and I feel that her son (and her, of course) is a big part of my life. I wouldn't want to miss him growing up for the world!
I find that living as a student forces you to live in a strange dichotomy- "home friends" and "uni friends"...I often find that when living in one realm, it is painfully easy to loosen your grip on the other. However, as one friend once said to me; "I trust that we have a solid enough friendship that you'll still be there, even after a lack of communication" (or words to that effect), and I suppose it really is all about trust. Trust that while everything changes, your friendship won't change all that much. Trust that you still matter to each other. Trust that when push comes to shove, when one really needs the other, you'd still cross borders, climb mountains, ford streams...that there ain't no mountain high enough; ain't no valley low enough; ain't no river wide enough to keep you apart. For the most part, I think my friends would.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.
I have been thinking about the way that people enter our lives, often largely through coincidence, and then leave again. I recently got back in contact with a friend who I used to work with; we were close, but after I went to uni we drifted apart. He is now engaged to his long-term boyfriend (last time I spoke to him, he was single) and is moving across the country to live with him. I'm not naive enough to imagine that we'll magically become best buddies, but it's nice to touch base with him again.
I'm not close with anyone I knew at primary school anymore, though we're all civil to each other and occasionally catch up via Facebook. It's almost the same with secondary school, with the exception of L and K. L and I have that sort of friendship whereby we can go weeks, months, without talking, and then pick up exactly where we left off. It's lovely to know that she'll always be there, but that we live our separate lives. However. She has been having a really rough time lately, and to my shame I didn't know when it was at its worst. In fact, the first I knew of it was when I phoned her from a train for a catchup, and she burst into tears at me. L doesn't cry. It was a shock. I'm now trying to make the effort to hold on tighter.
K had a baby a couple of years ago, and (perhaps to my shame) it is largely thanks to him that we keep in touch. I was with her when she took that pregnancy test, and I feel that her son (and her, of course) is a big part of my life. I wouldn't want to miss him growing up for the world!
I find that living as a student forces you to live in a strange dichotomy- "home friends" and "uni friends"...I often find that when living in one realm, it is painfully easy to loosen your grip on the other. However, as one friend once said to me; "I trust that we have a solid enough friendship that you'll still be there, even after a lack of communication" (or words to that effect), and I suppose it really is all about trust. Trust that while everything changes, your friendship won't change all that much. Trust that you still matter to each other. Trust that when push comes to shove, when one really needs the other, you'd still cross borders, climb mountains, ford streams...that there ain't no mountain high enough; ain't no valley low enough; ain't no river wide enough to keep you apart. For the most part, I think my friends would.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.
Sunday 5 October 2008
Canterbury
God, it's good to be back. That's not to say it hasn't been a hard couple of weeks, because it has, but I love being here. My new house is beautiful...
We made purple satin curtains to replace the monstrosities that were originally in our living room (see photo on top above), my room is full of my stuff (see photo above), I have amazing new shoes (almost hidden under chest of drawers in photo above)...they're midnight blue with fuckme heels; I'm not usually a shoes girl (see very expensive trainers next to fuckme shoes in photo above) but these are beautiful. I am in love! We also made three collages out of cards we'd been given, cuttings from magazines, and my photos:
(Forgot to take a photo of the third one, but you get the idea!)
We have worked our way through a little over a litre of Bombay Sapphire, copious quantities of tonic, ice, and limes, several bottles of wine, and a hell of a lot of pasta (our oven is broken so we're restricted to things we can cook on the gas hob). We have flowers and candles and cushions and internet! We have a home phone number. Our sofa is purple. I have learnt to love tea and often switch on the kettle before doing anything else after walking through the door. We have Hotel Chocolat house dark chocolate Batons on the coffee table. We have cheesecake. We have local cider and cobnuts. I joined a gym! Today we went to Choral Evensong at the cathedral and the anthem was Nimrod "Lux Aeterna" from Enigma Variations by Elgar (seriously, nothing could have made me happier).
Last Saturday we had a big night out when my friend Sophie came to visit (along with my housemate's boyfriend, who is a permanent resident on weekends). Cosmopolitans FTW:
(Could I look much happier?! And yes, the bar (Boudoir Bar, it's beautiful) had run out of Cosmopolitan glasses.)
For all this happiness, it hasn't all been marshmallows and blue skies. My first week was bloody hard, and yesterday the Black Cloud crashed down on me far heavier than I expected. My doctor suspects I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but wants to rule out Diabetes first with a fasting blood test (which will be on Wednesday). I have buggered up my knee and I'm not sure how though I suspect the blame lies with the resistance training I've been doing with weights at the gym. So that's my half marathon training set back for a while. Lovelife-wise it hasn't been great either. I realised I'd been messing someone around a bit and had to hurt him. Which sucks. Cruel to be kind, I guess, but I feel royally rubbish about it. And on top of that, it's all very well being sensible and grownup and recognising that life isn't a fairytale, and some things just couldn't work however much you wanted them to, and that it's impossible to know how someone feels, and that it's bloody difficult to tell the truth about how you feel...it's all very well to know these things, and to be these things...but sometimes I feel like Carrie in SATC... I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.
But hey ho. It's not all bad and I'm actually quite content with how it's all panned out. Plus, I had an excuse to quote xkcd, which, even though I didn't mean it seriously, is always a good thing!
I feel okay.
How are you?
We made purple satin curtains to replace the monstrosities that were originally in our living room (see photo on top above), my room is full of my stuff (see photo above), I have amazing new shoes (almost hidden under chest of drawers in photo above)...they're midnight blue with fuckme heels; I'm not usually a shoes girl (see very expensive trainers next to fuckme shoes in photo above) but these are beautiful. I am in love! We also made three collages out of cards we'd been given, cuttings from magazines, and my photos:
(Forgot to take a photo of the third one, but you get the idea!)
We have worked our way through a little over a litre of Bombay Sapphire, copious quantities of tonic, ice, and limes, several bottles of wine, and a hell of a lot of pasta (our oven is broken so we're restricted to things we can cook on the gas hob). We have flowers and candles and cushions and internet! We have a home phone number. Our sofa is purple. I have learnt to love tea and often switch on the kettle before doing anything else after walking through the door. We have Hotel Chocolat house dark chocolate Batons on the coffee table. We have cheesecake. We have local cider and cobnuts. I joined a gym! Today we went to Choral Evensong at the cathedral and the anthem was Nimrod "Lux Aeterna" from Enigma Variations by Elgar (seriously, nothing could have made me happier).
Last Saturday we had a big night out when my friend Sophie came to visit (along with my housemate's boyfriend, who is a permanent resident on weekends). Cosmopolitans FTW:
(Could I look much happier?! And yes, the bar (Boudoir Bar, it's beautiful) had run out of Cosmopolitan glasses.)
For all this happiness, it hasn't all been marshmallows and blue skies. My first week was bloody hard, and yesterday the Black Cloud crashed down on me far heavier than I expected. My doctor suspects I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but wants to rule out Diabetes first with a fasting blood test (which will be on Wednesday). I have buggered up my knee and I'm not sure how though I suspect the blame lies with the resistance training I've been doing with weights at the gym. So that's my half marathon training set back for a while. Lovelife-wise it hasn't been great either. I realised I'd been messing someone around a bit and had to hurt him. Which sucks. Cruel to be kind, I guess, but I feel royally rubbish about it. And on top of that, it's all very well being sensible and grownup and recognising that life isn't a fairytale, and some things just couldn't work however much you wanted them to, and that it's impossible to know how someone feels, and that it's bloody difficult to tell the truth about how you feel...it's all very well to know these things, and to be these things...but sometimes I feel like Carrie in SATC... I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.
But hey ho. It's not all bad and I'm actually quite content with how it's all panned out. Plus, I had an excuse to quote xkcd, which, even though I didn't mean it seriously, is always a good thing!
I feel okay.
How are you?
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