my other child

Last night we went to Katherine Applegate's One and Only Family tour organized by Red Balloon Bookstore. 😍

I've recently discovered Katherine Applegate's books and I just love her style of writing. I listened to most of them during my last few months working at a middle school when I was really struggling with my health and didn't know what was going on.

So when I heard she was going to be in town I had to go!

She is a lovely person and does a fabulous presentation. I loved hearing from her and was mostly successful in ignoring how woozy I felt during the presentation. 

Standing in line to meet her I tried not to think about how weird my knees felt, and that my legs were starting to shaky. My mind immediately jumps to the worst conclusions when something is off with my body. 

I reflected on my week. I have had a nagging sense of overtired fatigue, but brushed it off in favor of doing what I wanted to do. 

Actually it has been several weeks that I've been letting my self care habits slide. 

Maybe not a great idea.

Katherine Applegate is delightful, by the way. So generous and gracious and humming with a joyous, loving energy. Definitely worth getting to bed late for 😉. Once. 

After a fitful start that evening, I slept until almost 9 the next morning. I woke up groggy,  with a blazing headache and feeling like I had been trampled by something larger than my cat (who regularly tramples us during the night) 😵‍💫

Perhaps I've been overdoing it.

As I slowly moved around to start my day I was reminded, again, of a saying I had heard at a Lupus Foundation webinar: Lupus is your other child. 

I've long had the opinion that we are spiritually just toddlers - not understanding, having short attention spans, and helplessly dependent on our Caregiver even as we yell and scream "I do it!". 

Now I have to remember to treat my body a little more like a toddler too. Keep the snacks handy, get to bed early and consistently, keep moving and please oh please don't skip nap/quiet time! And of course lots of patience and love.

😪 Sometimes I'm exhausting. Perhaps my challenge in this phase is to learn to love myself and my body even though things are changing and I can't do all the things I want to do.