For as long as I remember, I feel like I’m an uprooted tree in a crowded forest. I’m still standing, but in a precarious balancing act, trying very carefully not to topple over, because if I would, I’d take a large swath of forest with me.
Likewise, it’s like I’ve just tripped over something and I’m now placing one foot in front of the other, faster and faster, in a futile attempt to stay ahead of gravity.
When I was a child, I was amazed by how much other people seemed to be able to do in a day. They would go to school, meet friends, do a bunch of other things and still have enough energy to bounce around like a Duracell bunny. I on the other hand, felt like I had finished a marathon by the time it was ten o’clock in the morning. How did these people do it? How did they manage life so well? There must be some trick to it and I probably just needed to work harder to figure it out.
Now the good thing about being a child is that even when you are low on energy, you still have enough to fake it. This quickly evaporates when you grow older, though. There comes a point where there really isn’t any other option than to recognize that maybe you are not going to figure out ‘the trick’. Maybe you just need to see a doctor.
So, I went and asked: “Hey, am I crazy?”
And they said: “Yes! Certifiably so.”
In Comes The Hero
Turns out that not everybody has a brain like mine and this is the reason why I’m so tired all the time. Ah.
The doctors also told me that when your symptoms or illness get a name, it helps you to combat it. They were absolutely right of course. It’s hard to face a shadow, let alone talk about it. Which is why I’m calling my condition Janice.
Now, Janice is a lovely condition. She cares for me. Like, really REALLY cares for me. She wants to make sure that nothing bad is ever going to happen to me. In short: Janice is the helicopter-mom from hell. This, of course, includes the helicopter that she has outfitted with two machine guns, a laser guided missile-system and a disintegrate beam – hey, it’s my brain: Realism doesn’t take effect here.
Now, the issue with Janice, is that she’s a bit wired. Anything can set her off, really. And if she does, alarm bells echo through my head like crazy and I will have to do anything in my power to calm her down, or the chain-reaction will cause trees to fall in the forest. This managing takes up most of my day.
I wanted to introduce you to her, because as much as I’d wished she wasn’t here, she is and she is a huge part of my life. So much so, that she’s perhaps a second protagonist on this journey.
If we were a movie, we’d be a buddy-cop flick. Except we’re not cops. And we’re certainly not buddies either. ‘Cause I want her out and I’m quite sure that she’d kill me in her zeal to keep me safe.
What a fine couple we make.
