When I have more energy, I’ll clean the bathroom.
When I have more energy, I’ll wipe the baseboards.
When I have more energy, I’ll load the car with donations.
When I have more energy, I’ll deal with the half-broken couch.
When I have more energy, I’ll get to that.
This morning in the dark, I realize I think “When I have more energy” a lot. For those of us contending with a chronic physical condition, energy isn’t something we can assume will show up later. But I keep hoping it will.
I am realizing my energy comes in windows, not guarantees.
There’s a concept often used in the chronic dis-ease world called spoon theory—the idea that we wake up with a limited number of spoons (units of energy) each day. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
If we only have seven spoons a day on average:
- A shower might take one. Or two.
- The grocery store might take three.
- Making dinner might take two.
- Managing pain, advocating for yourself, emotionally holding it together? That takes spoons too—people just don’t see those.
I work full time. I am a trying to attentive mom. So when I say, “I’ll get to that when I have more energy,” it’s not procrastination.
It’s often triage.
So at 3 a.m., since I woke up, I cleaned the toilet.
Not the whole bathroom.
Not the sink.
Not the mirror.
Just the toilet because I had the bit of energy to do it.
Two hours later, on another bathroom trip, I put a load of laundry in.
Then back to bed to rest.
At 7 a.m., laundry into the dryer.
Bit by bit.
I am learning to work with the small windows instead of waiting for a mythical, big door of “later.”
I try to be gentle with the shame. Because shame shows up fast when productivity doesn’t look “normal.”
I’ll grab a Windex wipe when I walk through the kitchen, so when I come back with my coffee, I can clean one mirror on the way.
Swipe a little dust off the artwork on one wall. Progress. Dent.
Later, I wash all three dishes from lunch—because sometimes a whole sink is too much at the end of the day.
So I write down what did happen:
We ate healthy meals.
My son got to rehearsal.
I elevated my legs when my body asked for it.
I got some sunshine time.
I did a session of chair yoga (hoping to increase my spoon energy)
We laughed.
We talked.
This kind of slower living isn’t fully visible from the outside. Many people have no idea how fatigued I am most days. How much things hurt. How often I need a rest on that semi-broken couch. How often at the end of the day, I try to lift my legs without tools but usually need them anyway. Again I try to not shame myself about needing them.
I am physically weak some days. But I am not weak.
And if you are physically weak right now, you are not weak either.
We are doing what we can inside the windows given.
And sometimes, the truth is, that looks like simply cleaning a toilet at 3 a.m.