Hello reader!

It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I’ve started to settle into the new role (passed my probation yas!) but I may have done something silly and triggered a HUGE chronic fatigue crash. Turns out I can only really sustain 70+ hour weeks for about 5 weeks before the body goes “NO NO NO” (a la the late Amy Winehouse).

So right now I am pushing my way through a full on week, but taking time off as I need it. Oddly, I seem to be putting on more weight even though I am too tired to eat properly, so I suppose it could be a mixture of eating rubbish food and not moving as much as I should. It’s also hard at the moment as I weigh up seeing my regular doctor (for the past five years) at a clinic that is almost an hour away (and it’s not bulk-billed) or if I see my previous regular doctor who is at a bulk-billed clinic 15 minutes away, but I will need time to get her up to speed with the last few crazy years, and it can take up to a month to get medical records transferred, so I’m currently um-ing and ah-ing about my next steps.

On another note, I made a comment in passing to my partner the other night questioning whether or not I needed Botox, but at the same time, I was criticizing someone on TV for having so much work done her face was a) unrecognizable, b) immobile and c) weird. My partner, clever man that his is, told me I did not need any work done and also that he did not approve of unnecessary cosmetic procedures. Now I know he HAS to be nice to me (poor man), and I know that everyone ages, but at what point do we start to worry about our looks changing? I turned 37 this year, and have always been fairly unbothered about my appearance – I make sure I am presentable and that’s about it. I rarely wear make up but I am finicky about fragrance; I colour my hair (although I am fairly slack about it) and it’s clean, as are my clothes. I was actually intending to let my hair grow out grey to see how it looked – if I managed to get a streak or a salt and pepper look, I would have kept it, but unfortunately my grey’s (whites actually) grew all around the temples and hairline and I actually say my 60 year old self in the mirror which made me freak out and call my hairdresser for an appointment ASAP. What did make me laugh this week though (and also put a lot of my aging fears to rest) is that I randomly ran into my grade 3 teacher (so she taught me when I was about 7) who not only recognized me, remembered my name AND said that I have not changed. I’m telling myself it’s the baby fat 😉

One of the things that isn’t really covered in the whole ‘adulting’ experience is how to cope with aging. I know it’s different for everyone, but for me I feel like it has come on all of a sudden, most likely due to the couple of years of illness and consequential deconditioning due to a lack of physical activity. I groan getting up from the floor; my back hurts, my knees crack… walking to the carpark puffs me out :D. It’s made me super conscious of the aging experience, even if my face is still 7 (or I looked 35 at the age of 7, which is entirely possible too), and I’m more determined to get help for my chronic fatigue, even if it’s a condition that is not widely recognized (my neurologist called me crazy for even suggesting I had it) and not well understood so treatment options are pretty much trial and error. I did read that it is now accepted as a biological condition, but there is a lot more that needs to be done before there is proper acceptance of it as a disease, but with the advent of Long Covid, the CFS squad are hopefully going to be a) taken seriously and b) given more provisions to help manage.

In the meantime, I’m just going to keep researching skincare and nutrition to keep my 7 year old face looking 7, given that I can’t seem to stop my body from prematurely ageing 😀

Look after yourselves
Bx