When the hope just makes you feel tired

Last updated on: November 26, 2014 at 11:05 am by Rebecca Frech

When the hope just makes you feel tired 2014-11-26T11:05:31-05:00 Rebecca Frech

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Yesterday, we noticed a glimmer of improvement with Ella’s nerves. One of the tiny peripheral signs we had noticed has taken a step closer towards “normal.” We should have been elated. We should have been celebrating. We broke down and sobbed. She curled her body into mine and wept.

We don’t have the energy for hopefulness. It’s incredible the amount of stamina it takes to be constantly optimistic, and we have burned through our reserves.

I had no idea how tired we were until we we agreed to stop looking for medical answers. Once we had agreed to be done, the fatigue washed over us and we slept off and on for days. The collected weariness of the past seven months weighed us down and made it hard to do much besides the bare minimum. We wanted nothing so much as a chance to rest.

And then this tiny thing has changed, and it feels too heavy. That’s the only way to describe it – heaviness.

Ella spoke my thoughts out loud when she asked, “What if I don’t want this now? What if it’s too much? Can I just tell God ‘No thanks. I don’t want this any more?'”

I told her I don’t know what this change means, that a new involuntary muscle movement isn’t anything but one small step on a long road. I told her that know exactly how done she is with all of this, and how much she wants to be able to settle into whatever her life will look like.

We’re done, and yet there’s this tiny little gift of hope sitting in our house now, this small sign of healing. I know how we’re supposed to feel, and how happy it should make us. I know how the Hollywood script would read as we all ecstatically ran for answers and found renewed energy and zeal in this glimmer of hope, but this isn’t the movies. This is real life, and the real life people can’t even summon the energy to begin to unwrap the box.

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