Imagine if you suddenly lost your capacity to dream.
But then, maybe you're one of those people firmly rooted in the present. Or constantly looking towards the past. Then you won't relate.
I'm always thinking about the future. Like, there isn't a moment where the future isn't a bright, shiny ball of possibilities, just right outside my reach. I want so badly to achieve and to accomplish meaningful, useful things.
Imagine that the ability to stretch towards the ideal was completely taken away.
It wasn't instantly. It was very piecemeal. It started out with a conscious decision to delay my study of Czech... FOR A YEAR. Nobody except me can really understand what a big deal that was in my life. It was like consciously promising myself not to eat chocolate... For a year.
Slowly, one at a time, other projects got filed away for another time. Imagine a stack of files from the floor to the ceiling. These files are filled with things I'm interested in. One or two files per day would get tucked away in some unknown, unfindable cabinet, starting around the time I got pregnant in January. It wasn't super noticeable, least of all to anybody not living inside my head.
For the first few months very little had changed. I was still running, I went to a Genealogy conference across the country, I continued to blog, etc. The most noticeable change was when suddenly, without at least two dozen connected "files", I finally wasn't capable of blogging about Czech gen anymore. This happened around May or June.
It was terrible. I could still remember (obviously) my feelings and passion about this, but I could no longer participate. It was like my capacity, my interest, my passion - all these things were taken away. It is hard to explain to people who haven't experienced it. It's like preferring to stare at a blank wall rather than do what I used to love. It's like being unable to physically sit in a chair at a computer because it's so uncomfortable. It's like bursting into tears whenever someone is a jerk (or might be a jerk) to you on the internet: hint: that's all the time! For my own sanity, I had to focus on the files that remained in the pile.
There are only about a dozen left, and for me that's almost nothing. Even these files seem to be missing pieces; like, I still enjoy painting but only for very short bursts of time and only with lots and lots of ridiculous extrinsic praise. I still enjoy organizing my house and making it beautiful but nothing that involves physically moving things heavier than like, a poster, is included in the file anymore. I enjoy watching movies and talking about them with Danny. But I can't handle extremely violent or negative films, and the threshold for "extremely violent" is very low. I enjoy dressing up and looking nice for church, but there is only like, one choice of outfits to wear which fit me still. I enjoy more than anything spending time with Danny. It doesn't matter what we are doing. We could be staring at the wall together, though I worry constantly that he's irritated at or bored with me, when mostly he's just panicky about not being able to *do* anything to make me feel better.
I enjoy being with my family, especially my children. I can't bend down and pick things up and put them away, which is frustrating. I can't hold my three year old without it hurting, and she always wants to be held. We finished watching the entire series of My Little Pony together - twice. I enjoyed that even though towards the end I fell asleep in every episode.
I scroll online through an endless stream of news, ideas, thoughts, ads, clickbait, photos, videos, complaints, etc. I like it because it allows me to escape from the prison of my uninterested, lonely mind. I hate it because it's a soul-sucking world full of envy, innuendo, between the lines messages, and blatant cruelty. I disconnected myself from Facebook for a week and for me, my world was a much darker, worse place. Then I was completely alone except for the very brief time when Danny was home. The "friends" folders... They mostly are not exactly put away in the other cabinet, just strewn in a messy heap all over the room, papers everywhere, with one or two in places I know about. Some friends actually are completely put away.
There's going to have to be a massive mind cleaning when things get back to normal. It's going to take forrrrrrrrever.
A file that remains is the one for my personal scripture study. I don't think my faith itself is encapsulated in any of these files; that isn't something that goes away. I still find joy from reading the scriptures. Yesterday I read Alma 32. I really genuinely like this chapter. I find it uplifting. I wish I had more creative files left because those are the ones that I really, really love, but at least I can still find some small amount of joy from imagining the extended metaphor of the tree that Alma talks about. It's a form of creativity I suppose, though nobody but myself in my own head can share it. At least I still have this.
Alzheimer's patients lose their files in a similar way and then lose the ability to understand what they've lost. This is not the same thing as being miserably pregnant, obviously. My state is temporary and if everything goes as it always has, I'll start to bounce back the second the baby is born. Alzheimer's patients won't, at least not until after their bodies are resurrected, which is not going to be soon enough to feel very relevant.
Today I am 39 weeks pregnant. I've always gone into labor on my own at some point between 39 weeks and 40 weeks. Let's hope and pray that this will continue to be the pattern. I really miss my mind, and my body. I want it back.