Sunshine.  Glorious, beautiful sunshine.  Early this morning the leaves across the street were glittering with it, like the ocean sometimes does.  Beautiful.

Slightly less whiny today, thank goodness.  Having a lot of trouble sleeping, which means days are spent napping or being a zombie.  Very frustrating, and being alone makes it worse.

Had a message today that I got a lot of new followers.  Checked.  Nope.  What’s that about?  I’ve been blogging since 2005, I think, and I have 39 followers.  This is not the most popular blog in the blogverse.  Probably because it’s not that kind of blog.  It’s mostly what’s on my mind at the moment.  Sometimes I’m angry at the world, sometimes I’m angry with my life, sometimes I’m having a spectacularly good day.  Sometimes things are bothering me, whether it’s something going on in the world, or just something going on with me, and writing about it helps.  It’s not a ‘make money’ blog, or a ‘how many followers can I amass’ blog, or a ‘my blog is more popular than your blog’ blog.  It’s just me, saying whatever I have to say today.

I try not to be too whiny, but I think I do not succeed with that at all.  But there’s a lot of good in my life, in  life in general, and I do try to remember that and write about it sometimes.  I get down.  This is a hard life, being chronically ill.  It would be different if I had a big family around, and lots of support from friends, but I don’t.  My friend Tess  has another friend who frequently asks for some sort of help.  Shopping, getting to an appointment, etc.  Same things I need.  But if Tess is busy, this friend has a whole list of other people she can call on.  I have Tess.  Poor Tess.  I have turned into a burden instead of a friend.  I hate that.  I really hate that.  It’s very hard to be the needy one in any relationship.  I read about people who have spouses who are there for them, taking care of them, doing what they can to make the ill person’s life manageable for them. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes I feel abandoned.  Sometimes I get angry at the unfairness (Life is fair?  Seriously?) of it all.  Frustrated that I can’t do the things I want/need to do.  Sometimes I just feel sorry for myself.  I’m human, after all,  I don’t want to be that person, but sometimes you just have to give up for a while, and wallow in your misery.  Fighting every moment of every day is very, very tiring.  Fight to get up, fight to get something to eat, fight to get dressed, fight to just not lay down and pull the covers over your head.  You have to fight to do things in spite of constant pain and exhaustion.  This is what chronic illness is.  A constant battle to survive in spite of.  And sometimes you just can’t do it right now.  There a people who are a lot sicker than I am, so you can imagine how hard their lives must be.

I remember reading, before I got this myself, about a woman who wanted that Dr. Kevorkian to help her die, because she just didn’t want to live with the pain of this illness any more.  That’s ridiculous, said I, before I understood what it’s like.  But I don’t want to end it.  Never give up, never surrender.  I have always been a fighter, and I always will be.  Today, the leaves were glittering from the sunshine.  I wouldn’t want to have missed that.