It was a tough winter.
I spent most of 2015 feeling run down. I didn't feel like me. I felt like a pale shell of myself.
I was a pale shell of myself except you didn't really see it because I stopped taking pictures. Or at least, I stopped sharing them, unless the light was particularly favourable. Whenever I looked at them all I could think is how I looked pale and sick and not like me.
I was physically drained and every month it was getting a little bit worse.
The low point may have been Boxing Day. I napped most of the morning on the couch before going over to a friend's house for turkey dinner. I didn't trust myself to carry anything up and down the stairs at her house because I was afraid of falling. I was a very unhelpful guest.
Or maybe it was the night I sat on the kitchen floor and bawled. All day I felt like a character in a video game, and with every hour it felt like I was losing another heart. By the time evening rolled around I was down to my last one and it was blinking. The only thing I'd done all day was work at my desk and then sit at the dining room table, working on a jigsaw puzzle.
Near the end of the year I got my shit together, went to the doctor, and we're working on some things that will hopefully make me feel like me again.
I'm currently feeling optimistic.
I can go on the treadmill, walk for 30 minutes, and not be completed exhausted for the next three days. I can go up a flight of stairs without my heart thumping so hard it feels like it wants to burst through my chest. I can run errands in the morning and still have energy to spend hours shredding documents we decided to purge thanks to KonMari.
It's especially nice it's happening just as winter is waning. Not that it looks like it's waning outside my window right now but it's March. I know spring is coming.
I know that the thaw can happen in March and by the end of the month it's completely possible I could have spent a day on the deck, lapping up the spring sunshine.
I know that two years ago this week, I had my first outside run of the season. It was a heavily bundled with Yaktrax to grip the snow run but it was an outside run. Last year, running at all wasn't an option.
I'm starting to think about summer running. I'm starting to think about painting the kitchen. I'm thinking about gardening. I'm thinking about summer hikes. I'm even sneaking in a few laps at running speed on the treadmill.
Instead of feeling so tired I could—and often did—cry, I feel hope.
It's been a long time. It feels good.
It feels like me.