The economics of time

I read a Substack today by Suleika Jouard. She is going through a change in her chemotherapy treatment for leukamia. My nursing brain knows this is because previous treatments were not working. I remember the stroke that Kate had during her treatment, the stroke that killed her. Treatments are better than they have ever been but I wonder if Suleika is running out of time.

She writes about how plans have had to change, big ideas in far away places have been cancelled with regret. Life will be lived close to home and there will be days where life will look still and slow and difficult.

I think about this un relation to time with mental illness, a recurring anxiety, depression, hypomania. Fluctuations of need that can come without warning, cannot be tamed and interrupt life’s best plans even when expected.

The idea that plans may have to be changed, no longer applies I think. I have stopped maling long term plans. I no longer book things in advance, I don’t buy tickets or fill a calendar with events. It probably annoys people.

But an unstable life means having unstable plans. Now I wake, determine my energy level, my mood and then plan the day or maybe the next few hours accordingly. Maybe I’ll exercise, walk, swim, write or read. maybe I won’t do any of those things and the day will pass in a haze of anxiety and panic or self-defeating depression.

Since perimenopause (I know, I know) I have little choice but to respond to the season, the weather, the change, the fluctuation as it happens. There’s less room for flexibility, less negotiating because it’s not just my mind I’m fighting with now, it’s also my body. Less plans means less disappointment.

Does it work better than big plans, big ideas, events to look forward to, even if they get cancelled? I don’t know. I simply came to live this way becasue any other way was no good. I got tired of cancelling plans, making excuses for my non-presence, for not showing up, for being the flakey one that never makes an effort.

It only provides more eveidence for all the things I can’t do or struggle with. And I don’t need any more, I have plenty. Pushinhg through is not an option.

This is better.