Lyme Beast: When One Day is Too Much

I have recently learned when one day is too much.  When one day of pushing yourself makes you fall in bed for two days.  When trying to act normal turns out to be a royal 'effin fail. 

I have to keep in mind that I am sick.  I don't look sick.  Somedays I don't feel as bad as I did before.  But it is on those days--those days when for an hour or three I think I could do so many more things--that I really need to be careful.  Because those dreamed of tasks demand a very high price. 

I have to focus on improving slowly and carefully.  Like bringing a favorite horse back from an injury, it is ok to be patient.  It is ok to have to wait.  It is ok to realize yeah, I need to sleep all day on Saturdays to compensate for the stress of school. 

But while I am lying in bed, I am practicing riding.  I am perfecting my transitions, envisioning them fluid and soft and so effortlessly straight.  I am finding expressive medium gaits in my mares, and springing from a beautiful collected trot into flowing, elegant extensions.  I practice half passes while I walk to class.  In my car, I am developing the tempo in movements, and visualizing a sweeping, lofty gallop that carries us over fences as if we had wings. 

Now, I am quiet.  My legs hurt.  I am tired after walking around feeding my horses.  The detail oriented perfectionist is hidden away, as I forget my jackets and hats in and around the stalls, the turnout sheets over the gates, and the various stirring implements for the grain in odd places.  But I am capable of getting up--of feeding the girls, of preparing their grain and hay and water.  Of cleaning one stall regularly.  That is an improvement. 

It is a far cry from dancing through the dressage portion of a recognized event, or floating over the cross country portion on my eventing-bred Trakehner (who injured herself in the pasture like the total diva she is).  It is not the slow build up of lungs and bone and sinew that is necessary for such things.  But it is an improvement from the vertigo, from the nausea and shaking of hands and legs and fingers that has detailed my life. 

Life will continue to improve.  And I will continue riding every day, in my mind, practicing all the things I would be doing if Lymes would let me.