Fatigued

Occasionally my anaemic state catches up with me and energy is in short supply. It’s a bit of a crash and burn situation.

It hit me during the latter half of this week. Feet-dragging, neck-lolling, frayed nerve-ends exhaustion. My doctor has been on at me for years to manage my time better. I tend to be one of those gung ho, in boots and all kind of people with little regard for how much sleep I’m getting or whether I’m eating properly. It is not a good idea to go, go ,go when one’s normal energy levels shatter at the smallest jolt.

Towards the end of the week I could feel the familiar haze descending; the lassitude, the sense of pointlessness, and the stubborn resistance of my mind telling my body to keep on going. No matter what. But the body wouldn’t oblige.

All I wanted to do in the evenings was sleep. No reading. No TV. No blogging. Sometimes that’s the way it works. There is a shutting down of sorts. Sometimes too much effort is required for everything.

I tried to motivate myself today by going for a walk. I stood at a point overlooking the harbour where there is a wrought-iron fence you can link your fingers through. I stand there often, pretending I’m a princess at the entrance to a castle, looking out at the world but unable to participate because my father refuses to let me leave the castle so that my position behind the fence is a kind of prison. Just as fatigue is.

But you gotta respect fatigue. All that spirit is willing but the flesh is weak stuff has a ring of truth to it. It’s a busy, busy world we live in. There is always something to do, people to see, places to go, blogs to visit. Fatigue knows what it’s talking about. It is the motherly type, shaking its finger at those who disregard the signs it throws in our path.

The fence left a gritty sheen on my fingers, smelling metallic as blood. A young man, dressed entirely in white called to me as I gazed out to sea, indicating the stairs leading to the road. He must have thought I was a tourist, he must have thought that if he didn’t call out to me I would stay, stranded forever behind that fence. He must have thought that I thought use of the stairs was forbidden.

So I walked down those stairs, black-tinged sandstone with lines of moss at the edges, throwing out my arms as I reached the bottom as a child does when they cross the finishing line in a race. There was a chill wind coming in from the bay but there was the clean touch of triumph in the air.

I saw the young man look back and I indicated my descent with a flourish. He adjusted his collar, laughing to himself, his white clothes billowing like sails. I took my eyes off him for a moment as a boat sounded its horn, and when I looked back, he was gone.

Happy, I walked back up the stairs and headed for home. My fatigue for the moment, forgotten, blown apart unexpectedly by the white-clothed stranger. All I could think of as I headed for home was something my son always says when the daily routine has been abandoned:

‘Normal service will resume shortly.’

And with fatigue currently at bay, I know it will.