A note to my body

You don't have to prove me right.

Sometimes it might be nice if you did. If I said, “I can sprout wings and fly,” that might be a good time for you to go out of your way to prove me right. Because that would be awesome. It would probably be accompanied by all kinds of problems, one imagines a b-movie plot where government agents want to get their hands on me for experimentation, but we'd cross that bridge when we came to it. Preferably by flying over it.

Likewise if I say, “I can do this,” it would probably help if you tried to prove me right.

But a lot of the time it's wholly unnecessary and sometimes its even actively harmful. It is not lost on me that after I described to a couple of people how depression and fatigue made me think I probably couldn't hold a job you hit me with fatigue so great I couldn't write a blog post and I watched almost a week pass me by being barely awake. I know it wasn't just the missing sleep from new year's, we've been together a long time and I know how you react to missing sleep.

Clearly, I say attempting to maintain an a straight face while addressing my own body over the internet, the most logical explanation is that you were trying to prove me right. You were trying to prove that I cannot hold a job by showing I can't even function at a vaguely passable level and showing it for a solid week. Clearly you were trying to prove me right.

But there are two important things to note. The first is that those people who I said that to weren't watching. There was no benefit to showing that. The second is that this would have been an ideal time to prove me wrong. A clear mind and energy would have been a welcome surprise. Instead of sinking to meet my fears you should have risen to surpass my expectations. You should have said, “You don't think you can hold a job? I'll show you,” and demonstrated that I am not in fact debilitated.

In short, when I say good things prove me right, when I say bad things prove me wrong.

We've been through a lot, you and I, and we've dealt with much of it well. Look how well we were typing right up until I decided to use that as an example. There was a time when it seemed like we'd never get that down. And we so seldom miss doorways these days. So seriously, don't meet the minimum possible expectation, rise to surpass things. And stuff.