Navigating the "I feel like used toilet paper" chapters

Photo by Michael Walter on Unsplash

Something that I’ve come to rely on in my post-depression life is this:

Most mornings, I wake up feeling good.

And, if I don’t wake up feeling good, I’m usually only 2-3 days of focused effort away from getting back to that place.

But right now, that isn’t true.

I’m not waking up feeling good. And I’m not sure if 2-3 days of focused effort will get me back to feeling good.

IVF is kicking my butt.

We did our egg retrieval surgery on Tuesday morning, and what started out feeling like an anesthesia hangover – well, it’s just not lifting. I’m going through the world with approximately one-tenth of my normal energy levels, and physically, I’m not well.

And I promise this isn’t a venting musing. I’m not putting my fingers on the keyboard so that I can tell the world about how rough life is for poor little Keely.

Life isn’t rough at all for poor little Keely, friends. Mostly because I’m not poor little Keely.

What I am is a human navigating an interesting chapter. A chapter that – oh, I don’t know? – every single one of us will encounter at some point?

And so I want to write about it. I want to write about it while I’m in it because I’m a writer who writes about the human experience. And writers who write about the human experience – we love covering the full spectrum. We love writing about the ups when we’re in the ups. We love writing about the downs when we’re in the downs.

Mostly, we love writing, and we love living, and we love life providing material for our work.

The material that life is providing for me right now – it’s about how to navigate a “this is new for me” chapter.

Because, despite the fact that I’m an eager beaver student who has studied Earth School’s curriculum to the best of my ability… I haven’t yet lived every experience there is to live.

The combination of nature and nurture known as Keely Marie Carney Copeland – she’s never before spent 25 days on high doses of hormones while simultaneously moving apartments, then gone right to Taipei for two weeks of more hormones, then had to get enough fentanyl “to tranquilize a small horse” pumped through her veins because her surgery took longer than expected, then…

Guys – I’ve never been here before. The things that work for normal, everyday Keely? The things that keep her waking up happy and delighted with the human experience?

Turns out they’re not the same things that work for this version of Keely. Partly because this version of me is too drained and nauseous to do the things that “normal” me does with her abundant energy. But also because a lot of the things that work for me are medically prohibited at the moment (I’m not, for instance, allowed to exercise).

And so when I woke up this morning with my mind and belly both churning – it wasn’t easy for me to turn my lens to gratitude and awe. I didn’t think, “GOODNESS, do I love being human on planet Earth.”

Instead, I tortured myself for an hour, ruminating about something stupid. Something that “normal” Keely would have been able to shake in roughly 10 seconds.

But I’m not “normal” Keely right now.

And the point I’m trying to drive home – the thing I want current me to understand – is that all of this is okay.

I’m not bad or flawed or failing because I can’t snap my fingers and get back to feeling “normal.”

I’m a human who’s navigating a rough patch, trying to keep her head above water while she waits for her hormones to regulate, her inflammation to drop, and all this junk to work its way out of her system.

And this can be really, really hard for those of us who were raised in a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” society to accept, but sometimes…

Sometimes we have to wait. Sometimes we have to be patient. Sometimes we can’t fix things by applying more effort.

My sister-in-law couldn’t out-effort grief last year after unexpectedly losing her best friend.

My friends who become parents can’t out-effort the exhaustion that comes from the “now we’re parents” transition period.

And I can’t out-effort my way to feeling better.

So I’m going to drink my Ginger Ale and munch on Saltines, while being grateful that throwing up gave me an hour of feeling good enough to put my fingers on the keyboard. Because sometimes, that’s how life goes. And the part of me that’s an 85-year-old working in my garden knows that this chapter is just as beautiful as the chapters where I wake up feeling like a million bucks. Very different. But just as beautiful.

Wishing us all overflowing servings of self-compassion,

Keely

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Morning Musings is a delight-first writing practice where I put my fingers on the keyboard and try to access my inner knowing. When life is great, I write. When life feels hard, I write. Mostly… I write. If anything I write resonates with you, please share it freely.

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