The year of rest.

If any soul out there keeps any track of this blog, they have probably noticed I have not added an entry in almost a year now. I’m sure no one has lost any sleep over this, yet I still somehow feel that I can’t just go back to adding posts without first explaining the reason for this gap.

I think most years have a theme.  2006 was my year of change, 2007 the year of hedonism, 2008 the year of finding my way in San Francisco, and so forth.

This last year was for me the year of rest. However, it did not start conveniently in January as did my former themed years. It started around May, just as I finished my last semester of college.

I passed all my classes and my parents were finally able to see me get handed a piece of paper while a room full of people clapped and took pictures.

My health must have gone on vacation,  because only days after graduation, I fell ill to flu-like symptoms: fevers, night sweats, extreme fatigue, pain traveling randomly through my extremities, and that strange taste in my mouth, like you’re holding a penny under your tongue. Between May and September of 2010, I must have gone through this flu-type thing at least 5 or 6 times. And I call it a flu-type thing because no one around me ever seems to catch what I have, unlike real normal flu, which is contagious.

Then I began to notice problems in my stomach.  As soon as my stomach emptied, every 3 or 4 hours, I did not experience a normal feeling of hunger. It was more like the feeling of some acid burning a hole through my insides. I would become instantly ill, nauseous, bending over this pain, until I ate something.

At around this time, just as I realized that this wasn’t normal, I began falling in love with a man who, luckily enough, studied natural health. He helped me get over my procrastination and skepticism and pushed me to go to the community clinic. There, I was finally told I had gastritis.

The doctor told me my problems were most likely caused by the stress marathon of non-stop working and studying, being always in a hurry and chronically broke for 7 years in a row. This, added to my natural propensity to stress out regardless of my circumstances, as well as some less that ideal eating habits, apparently caused havoc on my stomach lining.

It seems that, as one hospital worker told me, I was “living from the neck up,” for 7 years. I wasn’t listening at all to the signals my body was sending me. I was so preoccupied getting so much done, that my mind literally ignored these problems. As soon as I stepped off the stage after receiving my diploma, my mind finally had time and energy to listen to the rest of my body. And body wasn’t happy about having been neglected for so long.

I thought that now that I was done with school, I would have more time and energy to do my own projects and make money. But on the contrary, my body and energies had been depleted, my stomach a wreck.

I was already not doing much after graduation, and the doctor told me to do even less, to “lounge around the house more.”

And so I’ve been doing the minimal. Taking on just enough assignments to get by, cooking many home meals, and avoiding stress as much as possible.

The gastritis wakes me up every single day.  Sometimes as early as 3 or 4 a.m. At which point I will go back to sleep and stay asleep for as long as one hour or as little as 15 minutes before I’m woken up again with some kind of discomfort or pain in my stomach or esophagus. I continue this game of waking up and trying to get back to sleep until around 10 in the morning. On good nights, my stomach will only wake me up 3 times or so. Usually it’s at least 7 times, and up to 15. Sometimes I’m not able to go back to sleep at all. Every morning I get to a point, usually happens between 9  and 11 a.m., where I am still exhausted, but I have woken up so many times throughout the night and morning, that I become unable to go back to sleep.   That’s when I make that dreadful executive decision to get up once again, unprepared, unrested, and disoriented.

I makes me feel hopeless to be laying in bed exhausted, when all I am physically able to do is to sleep, my eyes hurting from dryness, yet my stomach won’t let me. I had always been such a good sleeper. Now, I am physically unable to sleep in. I crave this kind of deep rest so intensely. It sounds mundane, I suppose, to complain like this over lost sleep. But after a year of not being able to go through one night of uninterrupted sleep, I can tell you I miss it as if it was one of my best friends. I sometimes am so desperate I try to negotiate with my stomach: “Please, please, please let me go back to sleep, please, just a little more.”  The exhaustion can turn your thoughts almost hallucinogenic. I am sure that, if asked at the right moment, I would turn down a billion dollars just to be able to go back to sleep. It is also during these desperate early hours of mind fuzz when random negative thoughts come to mind, most of which dissipate once I have gotten some rest and the day light comes in.

I must make a pause here to clarify that I write all of this only because I want to share with friends and colleagues what I’ve been up to. Yes, I am in some pain and exhausted every day.  Yet there are people out there dealing with so much worse pain than I am, who have less resources, and less possibilities for a cure. I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that.

I keep snacks in my purse and by my bedside, because when I have to eat, I have to eat, or the pain comes in very quick. I sometimes sleep sitting up so that acids from my tummy don’t go up my esophagus. Other than this, and a long list of forbidden foods, things are mostly normal. I have a boyfriend and a cat, I still take photos, I travel to friends weddings or to holidays with my family. I do a little freelance work here and there.

But my gastritis has also pushed me to do good things for myself that otherwise I would have never done. I have changed my diet and eating habits. I began meditating to deal with my propensity to stress.  I’ve gained an awareness of my body that I’ve never had before. With help from my partner, I am exploring natural paths to health, because I have to do something while the community clinic system slowly digests me.

I only have a few regrets from my year of forced rest. I have neglected some friendships, missed birthday parties, BBQ’s and pub crawls, and for that I am sorry. My career has also slowed down, barely eeking out an income.

But slowly I’m getting used to this situation and trying my best to live around it.

I’ve recently started working as a Photography Editor for El Tecolote, a small bilingual community paper.  I am lucky the staff there knows and cares about me, letting me take a step back and take care of myself when I need to.

I am also going back to reporting for Mission Local. I am thankful that Lydia Chavez, my editor there, has also been understanding and flexible with me.

I am not sure how much longer this year of rest will last, or what will be the theme for next year. Perhaps it will be the year of Slow, when hopefully I will learn the greatest challenge of all, to be patient with myself and my body.

My new best friend: mushy bland food

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