Gaze as much as he might, he could see no end to the trees and the leaves in any direction. His heart, that had been lightened by the sight of the sun and the feel of the wind, sank back into his toes.
Actually, as I have told you, they were not far off the edge of the forest; and if Bilbo had had the sense to see it, the tree that he had climbed, though it was tall in itself, was standing near the bottom of a wide valley, so that from its top the trees seemed to swell up all round like the edges of a great bowl, and he could not expect to see how far the forest lasted.
Still he did not see this, and he climbed down full of despair. He got to the bottom again at last, scratched, hot, and miserable, and he could not see anything in the gloom below when he got there
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
I have used this passage before to describe a bit of how I feel on my off days, not necessarily cancer related specifically, but in general. Intellectually I know that nothing I’m going through right now is going to last forever but sometimes it is very difficult to see the end.
I think some of this is connected to the disparity between how much I need to do and how much I feel like I can do. I have no doubt that I could be doing more than I’m doing now in terms of maintaining the house, making progress in school, showing up for work, etc. if I just pushed myself a little harder. The question that I can’t settle in my mind is how hard do I need to push myself? How hard SHOULD I push myself.
There are two extremes; I could do nothing and just let everything fall apart or I could keep pushing myself to do everything until I collapse. Neither of those are good options but I’m not sure where the balance is. There is a big part of my brain that tells me I’m malingering or being lazy whenever I leave something undone to sit and rest for a while which is useful to a point, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem to have an off-switch. It’s hard to get a handle on what is a reasonable level of activity when that part of my brain is likely never going to be happy no matter how much I do. If it was a voice of encouragement it wouldn’t be that bad; “you’ve got this, keep going, you’re doing amazing, don’t stop” but instead I just have this constant drone about how lazy I’m being and how much time I’m wasting that could be put to better use.
My brain is not particularly helpful a lot of the time.
Totally get it. I often catch myself wondering how to make myself stop caring about the fact that don’t care about chores/exercise/personal betterment/whatever. I mean, how fucked up is it to not even be able to enjoy your indolence, but to forever be castigating yourself for it?
I think, my brother, you need to remember that the things you *are* doing are very significant. Educating yourself. Caring for your loved ones. Handling basically all of the domestic tasks for a family in a large house with multiple pets. And, certainly not least, attaining a high level of proficiency in a career that is of sufficiently significant public value that you are compensated well enough to do all the aforementioned things.
Whatever it is you manage to do, in whatever increments you manage to do them, is the result of a continuous, massive effort on your part, and a solid indicator of the vast content of your character. Don’t sell yourself short on that. Asshole. XD