Fighting in the Fog

 

This is what it feels like: guilt and anger, overwhelming fatigue, a hopeless sense of loneliness.

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling more tired than I’d like to admit. Dreams are getting harder to come by. It’s getting harder and harder to listen and to encourage. My words lack sincerity and depth. It’s a shallow kind of understanding. My heart feels so empty and I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. But oh, I feel so much, this isolation. No one knows.

Which is something I don’t understand. I really have nothing to be upset about. I’ve thought about it, I have everything. I have a good job, good working hours, enough money to get by, food on the table, a roof over my head, clothes to wear, family, friends, a boyfriend, a church, a ministry to serve. There is no way I should always feel this lonely. I’m surrounded by people.

But sometimes, more lately than usual, I think I could just evaporate, and people won’t notice until it’s too late.

I have nothing to be unhappy about. I know it. I’ve repeated it to myself over and over again. I believe in it whole heartedly. I know the people around me who have it a whole lot worse. They’re going though recession and pregnancy and bereavement and relationship issues and self esteem issues and family problems and long working hours and bosses from hell and toxic relationships and a whole host of other legitimate reasons why they should be unhappy. Not me. I have none of that.

I’m just so tired. So, so, tired. I’m not sure anyone can see that, through the fog of problems they’re going through.

It’s so strange, my body, despite its bulk should feel this tired. You’d think with the amount of food I’m eating everyday and the carefully calculated amount of calories with the right portions of roughage and vitamins. It’s so strange that something this large can still be tired. But it is.

I have nothing to be sad about. But I feel like my heart is broken and I don’t know why.

The problem with laundry....

...is keeping my white shirts white, and not fading to a musty cream after they had a few rounds in the wash. 

We used to have a helper who hand washed our clothes, but as she has retired since then, I've been using the washing machine to wash my working shirts. I'm probably not very good at it yet, because I've just stained my most expensive cotton shirts working shirts a light pink. (On the plus side, hey, new working shirt!)

When staring at my shirt in horror, the mother came and told me off for putting my working shirts in the washing machine instead of handwashing them (apparently, all this could be averted if only I had just been more industrious by immediately washing my shirts after I've worn them, instead of chucking them all in the wash). 

But... what's the point of owning a washing machine if I'm going to end up washing all my working shirts by hand anyway? 

Next time, I'll just separate the whites from the color clothes when doing laundry. To heck with water conservation and all.