'M.E. myself and I' by Anna Redshaw

I don’t get the Sunday Blues like most people do. That feeling on a Sunday night when your weekend ends and you set yourself up for a full week at work. 

Aren’t I lucky? Half Term has come to an end and yet I don’t have to face that back-to-work feeling because, well, I don’t work. I get another day off. And another day after that. And another after that. And then another…

People are getting ready for work or enjoying their last night before they head back to the daily grind. But not me. I don’t have to wake up tomorrow and get out of the house and into work for 9am. I don’t have to make a packed lunch or iron a shirt or polish my shoes or pack my handbag. I don’t have to face the crammed train carriages or the traffic on the motorway during rush hour. I don’t have to wish for 5pm on Friday. 

People often say that they’d give anything to have a day like mine; spending the day in my pyjamas, watching television, lying in bed, “doing nothing”. 

I don’t do nothing. I never do nothing. (What do they mean by ‘nothing’ anyway?) 

Every day I battle. I battle with an irregular heartbeat and palpitations, crunching and clicking and painful bones and joints, aching and twitching muscles, blinding headaches, swollen glands, weak and wobbly legs, problems with circulation and temperature, visual disturbances, a brain full of cotton wool that lacks the ability to process the simplest of things and can’t remember how to use the toaster… Every single day I grit my teeth and soldier on. Every single day I get out of bed (health willing) and I work harder than I’ve ever worked, doing a job I don’t want and a job I didn’t choose. There is no lunch hour. There is no clocking off. This is Day 1037 of working 24/7. 

So yes. Aren’t I lucky? For getting to stay at home while people slog it out Monday to Friday.