Working for my first client as a support worker I learnt to put together afternoon tea with a proper tray. Because if you’re chronically ill you make enjoying tea an occasion and do it properly with sugar in a bowl and lemon slices.
When I worked as a cleaner I adored the women I shared a building with, one of them, wore full makeup and gorgeous gold earrings to work every day. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s four am and no one’s going to see you, the gold earring are yours and you get to enjoy them whenever it is.
My Mum doesn’t believe in putting things away in drawers and never seeing them, saving them ‘for best’. Now, I vary on this because I have Christmas themed crockery but the underlying principle I’ve seen demonstrated again and again, the one that has really resonated is that if you’re going to do something then do it with your whole heart.
Do it full on and embrace every last drop of living.
Now this isn’t about the issues chronic fatigue has with taking to heart “do your best or not at all”, this isn’t my saying that I put every effort into each moment and exhaust myself until I can’t enjoy it. This is my saying that I put the maximum effort – That I Can – into every part of my life in order to get the most from it.
To that end I wore a pretty dress and make up to go to an online barcrawl and jewellery to an online birthday party this weekend. This social distancing thing, yeah, I remember, I’m wearing my gold earrings at 4am when no one else can see me.
