Tired

There is a great line from a Tom Petty song the says “I’m so tired of being tired.” It’s from the song “Crawling back to you”  from the album Wildflowers.  I feel like that is a very fitting statement for me right now.  I am a void of energy.  A couple of days ago (granted I was on a chemo cycle but still) I went for a two mile hike with Colby and Cade and then we also went with Brian and his two kids, Emily and Jordan.  So we were going a the kids pace, meaning slowly.  I got home and then proceeded to take a two hour nap.  I felt like I had just finished a 24 hour adventure race. Just zapped of energy, beat down, tired, exhausted.  Overall my ability to rally is gone. This has been a sobering and humbling part of this journey of mine.  As I used to think that I could always rally and that sleep in some ways was overrated and not always necessary.  Short on time, the answer was simple, just go through the night.  Take a good headlamp and your problem is solved, more time!  Now just about every night I find myself falling asleep playing Lego Star Wars with the boys or even in the middle of a lightsaber fight.  For all of you that are wondering, my lightsaber is a purple Mace Windu and yes I have my own.  Because of my energy levels, I feel like I am letting them down.  Granted they can tell you that it is because I am on chemo and when I have to take the drugs to shrink the tumor, Dad just gets tired, but I always wonder if they really can “understand” what that means.   It is one of the biggest challenges I face, having them see their Dad as being run down, tired, unable to play, unable to rally.  The fear that they have a conversation with their friends and then either Colby or Cade  will say that their Dad is too tired to play and have fun or that their Dad is tired all the time.  That leaves me with a knot in my stomach.  In the end though, all I can do is push forward, keep moving forward, sometimes slow, but always forward.  Do the best I can to keep my energy levels up and make sure that I maximize our play time together.  I think coming into this I was a pretty healthy, active person, so I can only imagine going through these chemo cycles being someone who is neither of those things.

Here is some encouragement for those of us how are weary:

From Isaiah 40

²⁸ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Moving forward, though sometimes at a slow pace…

DG DEH