Of Thoughts and Mud

Sometimes I just need to get away. Be alone. Have my own moment.

For two years I lived alone in London. Well... not quite alone alone. I did have flatmates, but they were people I didn't really know or have any sort of social responsibility towards. I kept my space clean, they keep their's clean, and otherwise we had very little to do with each other. It was lovely. I could retreat to my room and just be. Alone in a city of 8.6 million.

Southbank, London

And now I'm back in rural North Carolina. You'd think that it would be more peaceful here instead of less. But I'm living with my parents who haven't realized that I'm an adult yet. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and I'm very grateful that they've let me live with them during my health crisis. But that is just how parents are, I think, mothers especially. I had to sit her down and explain to her that I need my space, and that a locked door wasn't meant offensively, but she didn't quite get it.

Nighttime on Waterloo Bridge, London

When I need peace, I have to get out of the house. My mother has an odd quirk: she hates silence, therefore she talks a lot to prevent it. To anyone and everyone; human, animal, and object alike. I've walked in on her in a room where she was alone by herself, still chattering away to no one. She can't sit in a room with someone quietly; she has to talk to them, although the conversation usually only goes one way.


Even sitting in my room with the door shut, I can hear her chattering away at the dog in the kitchen. Always noise, always talking. Never alone.

Barn couture

So I escape to the barn. My trainer was away this weekend, so I was taking care of her barn and escaped there. No one to talk at me, no one entitled to my attention. Just alone. It was muddy, so I couldn't ride. Instead I scrubbed buckets, cleaned stalls, and swept floors. Just so I could be so very alone for a time.

I have a chronic illness or two, this is how it all started.

You never think when you wake up that this might be your last day feeling "normal". When being sick becomes the new normal, when doctors diagnose and re-diagnose you, and some have to google your diagnosis because they've never heard of it before.

Some illnesses are slow building, and you can look back and see the evidence of it coming on for years prior. Narcolepsy was like that with me. I was the sleepy one, the lazy one, the one taking all the naps.  It was all I could do to not nod-off while sitting up in High School (even though I adored school) and in university I scheduled my classes so that I could take naps in between them. Lunch breaks at work were always a battle between my hunger and my exhaustion, where usually the exhaustion won out.

I thought this was how everyone felt, and I was just not strong enough to fight off the need for sleep. I thought that every morning when people woke up, everyone felt as un-rested and drained as I do. Everyone said I was lazy, so I just figured maybe I was. Sadly, these were the good days. Around August of 2012, it got worse.