needed: a plan to get through the next eight weeks

Yesterday a school friend - who is also a war-resisters friend - showed me her computer screen: she's following wmtc.

First I thought, how cool. Then I thought, what a crappy time to join this blog in progress. I don't blog very much or very well during the school term. I mostly pass things along and share half-formed thoughts. Earlier this year, I had a mild freak-out about this, but I've come to accept the reduced blogging (both quality and quantity) as a necessity.

My big goal this fall was to set firmer limits and stick to them: school, war resisters, work, swimming or walking. And that's it. Stop trying to fit anything else in. I've been sticking to those limits... but now I think the limits are set too high.

As I recently told another friend: I'm in over my head. I am barely keeping up, but unwilling to drop anything. I cannot afford to work myself into a fibro crash, yet I'm not pulling back. I feel like I'm rolling down a hill, faster and faster, soon to be careening out of control. Which will come first? Winter break, or slamming to the ground at the bottom of the hill?

In the years after I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I gradually learned how to reduce the incidents of flare-ups, or crashes, as I call them. Instead of being completely out of commission for 2 or 3 days a month, I could reduce that to every-other month, then a few times a year. The flare-ups would be less severe, too, and I'd bounce back more quickly. Now, with better medication and supplements - and, undoubtedly, a good bit of luck - I haven't had any serious flare-ups for several years. All the pieces work together, but I think the single most important factor is getting enough rest.

Last fall, when I started graduate school, I felt that delicate balance being threatened for the first time in many years. At the beginning, I took a month off from the war resisters campaign and froze my gym membership. I re-joined my activism, re-joined the gym, and figured out how to do the necessary school work with the minimal possible effort. It's been working so far.

Now I feel the whole enterprise teetering. Yet I have no plan for change.

A wise friend recently emailed: "YOU have to do it. NO ONE can do it but you!" It's true. I'm not asking for your help, because there's nothing anyone else can do. But feel free to kibbitz and commiserate.