I Am Not Strong

I'm sitting here in my wheelchair wearing nothing but a polo shirt from the Port of Sidney, BC. My rear end is resting on a pair of underwear to protect my wheelchair seat. The reason for my distressful state is the toilet. When I go to the toilet, I essentially have to disrobe my lower half. Then, once complete, I can no longer dress on the toilet. So I make the very difficult transfer to my wheelchair, using my underwear as a protective cover for the seat. I'm not wearing compression socks today; I've spent most of my day in bed so I didn't really need them. Eventually I will have to re-dress myself.

This shirt makes me think of the days and months in years gone by which I would spend aboard my sailboat, visiting and re-visiting ports and towns along the south coast of BC, in the Gulf Islands, around Vancouver Island and right up to Bella Coola. I know that coast so well, I can still see so much of it in my mind, fresh breeze blowing, clouds drifting by, seagulls screaming, whales blowing, fish jumping.

These days the ship of my life is directionless. It possesses no latitude nor longitude, only lassitude. It has no compass heading, no point for which I am making except perhaps death. I am drifting only with the tide of happenstance, no wind in my sails, making no headway. I make only leeway and setting aback. I exist merely to eat, breath, sleep, and go to the toilet. And only eating is easy for me now.

Someone asked me recently where I got my strength from. I answered that it came from the friends and family around me, helping me, giving me a reason to keep going. Yet I don't think of myself as strong. If anything I feel like I am one of the weakest I know. I have no strength of my own. I am essentially incapable of caring for myself. I am reduced to begging for help in so many ways. My emotions are beaten by this disease, this loss of self empowerment, this inability in so many ways. I am not strong just because I fulfill those four basics of life. That is just surviving. I want to be more than a survivor, but I cannot bring myself to that emotional effort. It's all just too tiring.

The strangest thing about being bodily exhausted all the time is that my mind just can't figure it out. I can be up for hours on end, moving little, doing little, slouched on my couch, My body is safe from the effort of movement. I am tired, yet I cannot sleep. My mind keeps going, even though my body has stopped. When my brain gets tired enough to sleep, it is so often completely out of step with my body, with my circadian rhythm, with day and night.

Yet I sit there, lacking the strength to go to bed, to make that transfer, lacking the willpower to force my body to comply. I am weak physically. I am weak in will. I am weak in emotion. I have no strength, not of my own. There is no reason for me to move, yet eventually I do. I'm not strong; by this time I am just so bored that my mind actually is ready to release me to something else. And then I sleep. Or eat. Or go to the toilet. Breathing is constant.