"Nothing is ever easy" is one of my favourite book quotes (Zedd, The Sword of Truth, Terry Goodkind). It contains everything I want to say about life. It's just four words, deceivingly simple. But like most mysteries of life itself, it's a very complicated sentence.
I'm sure many people are living it harder than us (me & my wife). I can't imagine what kind of troubles people are trying to make living with. But our personal hell has upped its game in recent months. You would think that death would be the worst outcome in life. I couldn't imagine that my life would turn out to be like this.
The disease that has been plaguing our lives is Long-COVID and it's strikingly similar to ME/CFS with its progress. It debilitates my wife's life, bounding her to the bed. She doesn't have the energy to leave bed for even the smallest of tasks, like going to the living room. It saps your energy and it's not possible to replenish it with sleep or rest. It doesn't let her read, watch, listen, or talk. It only lets her exist, nothing else.
Whatever troubles made me think I was in hell before in my life, are nothing compared to this. My wife depends on me for everything, and that leaves little space for anything else. I can't leave home for more than an hour or two so that she's not lonely. I always keep my mask on wherever I go, since it was COVID that caused all this, and we dare not to catch it again.
My life is now smaller than before, but hers is a shadow of what it was. We have lost too much from our lives, and sometimes it threatens to take from our selves too. It's not an easy burden, and people are not very eager to share it with you. I'll talk about the lack of support sometime else.
I've always thought that parts of my life were particularly difficult, but nothing compares to my current situation.
Nothing is ever easy.