Pressing On

I am a farmer.

I am a grandmother crone.

I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. I also have Fibromyalgia.

I have been bedridden, wheelchair bound.

I have healed to walk an ancient pilgrimage.

I farm. Long hard days of physically and mentally demanding work growing food. I take great pride in how much I have done. How much I do.

No stranger to pain and fatigue, I pressed on despite all I know to be true of living with chronic illness.

I’ve done this. I got this.

Pressing on never works quite the way you think it will. My determination to not let M.E. or fibromyalgia stop me from farming led me to…..press on…through places where I was not in familiar in chronic illness landscape. The expected challenges of farming with ME/CFS and Fibro have been (until now) somewhat predictable in degrees of manageability.

Sometimes I mostly can. Sometimes I mostly can’t.

Up until this past week, I farmed full-time –  not alone, but mostly on my own.  This morning I rest in my bed. This week I do not harvest, I do not work my fields.  This afternoon I will go to market.  I will do precious little else. 

I pressed on until I could not press any further.

Not mostly, not at all.