It's So Heavy.

On those rare days when you are able to naturally wake on your own, do you love the moments just before your eyes flutter open? You're comfortable. You don't know what day it is. There is peace. There is only one knowing voice speaking inside you, gently allowing you be in this simple state. You bask in this feeling of existing without knowing who or how or where you are. You're in a perpetual present. It's beautiful. You feel consciousness gently crowding you, but you're able to put it off for a moment. 

As consciousness rolls in like a dark, knowing cloud over the blank canvas of your peace, you realize you're alive. You remember who and where you are. You breathe deeply of today's air, still not certain what today means for you, but you know it's today and you're living it. You don't move from your comfortable position. Your eyes are still closed. 

Trickling at first, you remember your life. Then suddenly, it splashes over you in a wave of awareness. 

Sometimes it's extra special: "I forgot I am on vacation! This is too good to be true--we're actually here! Today is going to be great. Wow!"

Sometimes it's beautiful: "It's the Fourth of July! We have a long day ahead, and we are going to create great memories. Let's get started!"

Sometimes it's routine: "It's Tuesday. That means there's school, a dentist appointment, and I am expecting an important phone call. Oh, and I can't forget to put a load of whites through."

And sometimes, it's dreadful: "Why do my eyes feel puffy? Did I fall asleep crying? Oh no...I did, and I remember why. Oh no! I didn't sleep long enough to handle this. Oh, how can I ever move from this spot? How can I face the day?"

I woke up dreadfully today. To go from the bliss of entering wakefulness to remembering reality can be so painful. 

I had a surprisingly rough day yesterday. I am still not at peace with it. My life will be taking a new path, and I don't know what that path will be or when I am to embark upon it. 

Providently, someone cancelled an hour-long time slot with my doctor because of the snowy weather, so the office called and offered it to me since we were already on my way up for my treatments. I had wanted to meet with my doctor and knew this was meant to be, but didn't know what we would cover. 

My doctor is amazing. She is very quiet and invites the Holy Ghost into her office. I've seen her discreetly pray and listen and discern. I have felt the Spirit come strongly into the room, distilling truth upon both of us simultaneously. 

My doctor wants me to find my own truth, but when she makes recommendations under the influence of the Spirit, I listen, pray for a witness from the Spirit, and generally hearken. My doctor knows a lot, listens to the Spirit, and has a gift. 

We ended up having a follow-up visit. They usually take a half hour, just to check in and cover the basics. But yesterday, I had lots of new lab results, and there were new topics to address. We needed that entire hour to zoom OUT on everything that had elapsed in the last year under her care. 

My doctor listed each of the many treatments for Lyme I have done and how I "should have" responded to each. But I have stayed the same. She is surprised. Maybe I'm even worse than where we started. 

"We need to figure this out," my doctor said. "You should be feeling much better. There is something we are missing. For some people, it takes a very long time to find the answer, but there IS an answer, and we will find it. I'll pray and think on this, and you pray and think on it too, and we'll see what we can come up with."

She wonders if my extreme fatigue is a sign of unresolved Lyme (which we retested presently) or something she is not able to test: a neurological disease. Maybe Lyme has been on the side of something bigger all this time. My doctor is sending me to a neurologist for evaluation to see if she is missing a problem with the nerves, and also to rule out MS and ALS. My devastating, worsening fatigue is concerning. 

I called for an appointment. Unfortunately, this neurologist isn't available to see me for five months. FIVE! If I can decline this much in five weeks, what could happen in five more months?

This is all so heavy to me. So heavy! 

I felt on the brink of bawling for a few hours after I received news that my nerves are in question, but I couldn't release the tears the way I wanted to. 

My sweetheart felt my heaviness as soon as he saw me and gave me a hug while he listened to a very brief summation of my doctor visit. He lifted some of the weight with his understanding and willingness to cross over anything with me. 

I cried a little once I was alone. I sang my sorrow to Heavenly Father by creating new verses to "Hallelujah." They expressed my confusion and fear, but praised Him with my desire to always love Him. 

Then I asked Heavenly Father for the ability to wait for answers, to know what is really going on, and to know His will once answers came in. 

I feel like a missionary waiting for her mission call to come. I think I am willing to do whatever He gives me to do, and go where he wants me to go. It's just awfully hard to wait for my assignment. 

It's hard for me to wake up every day. To remember my progress and how stagnant it looks to me. To feel the internal earthquakes reshaping my maturity. To feel broken. To wonder what I'll have the ability to do that day. To hope I can be brave and loving for my children. To not be a burden. To desperately reach for the sleep that just slipped through my fingers like parched sand, and to know the Sandman won't be back for another nineteen hours. 

I try to believe in today's potential, and I will do my best to praise God with my hallelujahs all the live long day. But waking up is hard. Every living day, it's hard living, painful like a muscle that is doing more reps than it can handle. It's building strength while ripping fibers and causing soreness afterwards. Boy, am I sore. 

I imagine the day I'll "wake up" from my resurrection with full love, full knowing, full power, full faculties. And I know, somehow and in some way I cannot see through the dark cloud of consciousness, that everything eventually has to be ok.