Trying is enough

It is the third day after Christmas.
I thought it would ease. It didn’t.

For three days I have been caught in a carcinoid storm. My body is in absolute, wild panic and at the same time completely exhausted. My heart is racing. A pressure in my head creates the sensation of being a ticking bomb, about to detonate at any moment. The flushing comes in waves, affecting my blood pressure, and at times it feels as if my face is about to catch fire.

My entire system is in revolt. And yet I know — I know — that this is physical. A backlash after Christmas stress, too much food and drink.

Completely wiped out.
Total exhaustion and total panic. At the same time.

I am not afraid in my thoughts. But my body is convinced that something is wrong. My ability to think deteriorates. All energy is spent on survival. Cognition is pushed aside, and emotions take over.

One single question grinds on like a skipping vinyl record:
How long will I have to endure this?

There is no answer. No medical solution, no prognosis. Just this. Just the present moment.
Endure — it will pass.
Endure — it will pass.
Endure…

How the hell does one endure?

I am so tired of it. Tired and sad. If the price of trying to live life the way I always have is this, then it isn’t worth it. I have to rethink. Scale down. Lower my ambitions.

But if what makes me feel alive also makes me sicker — and I stop — what will be left of life then?

Some time ago I asked my husband, who is approaching sixty, whether he feels old. He laughed softly and answered, of course:
“No, I don’t feel old.”

But I do.
I am 52 years old and feel like I am 82. At least.

The first reaction to such a realization might be that it is terribly sad. And yes — if one thinks that an incurable cancer turns a lively fifty-year-old into an old person, then it is sad. But there is something else there too. Something quietly beautiful.

Because I will most likely never get to experience old age.

I have lived childhood, adolescence, and adult life. I have had the fortune of becoming a mother. I have lived in marriage and gone through divorce. I have had the chance to mature — truly mature. To actually become an adult. And now, a little too early, I get to feel what it is like to grow old.

I want to see it as something beautiful.

Perhaps that is why I should speak to those who know what it is like.
Perhaps I should listen to those who have learned to move in step with aging — emotionally as well. Those who have adapted their pace, their engagement, their activities to their actual physical capacity, without drowning in sorrow.

The difference, of course, is that those who age in step with the life cycle are given time. Body and soul move more closely together. The world around them adjusts.

For those of us who grow old because of illness, everything happens in turbo mode. No one keeps up. Not me. Not those around me. So we must adapt. I must adapt to new conditions. And those close to me must do so as well.

It is not easy.
None of this is easy.

But I am trying.
Trying is enough.