The cold, dark days of living in Northern Germany are approaching fast. What sunshine hours we still get are spent in the garden. I haven’t started any of my dark-day projects. The apartment is essentially on hold.

I have a very limited amount of energy. I have to ration my “spoons” to leave energy for what’s necessary. When things get exhausting, I essentially go into “maintenance” mode. If it’s not time-sensitive, it can wait. Reality, unfortunately, rarely agrees to my plans.

That pumpkin that was supposed to be stored gets a bruise and needs to be eaten. The pears need to be picked. Or you wake up to a water leak in the kitchen on a morning with other plans.

So you roast the pumpkin to deal with later, chop up the apples and pears to dehydrate for granola and dog food, and then drive to the hardware store for what feels like the tenth time that week.

Our friends keep joking that we have are jinxed when it comes to things breaking. Often it feels like they are right. I think it’s not us who are jinxed but the world.

The leaky pipe had been purchased new just weeks before. I feel the quality of items has just gone down and down.

I took apart half the kitchen to access the faulty part. Bought a new hose (again), and installed the dishwasher (again). Hopefully, it will all stay dry this time. So far, it’s looking good. 15 bucks and a day lost but only minor losses. I’ll call it a win.

Now, I just had to clean up my mess of a kitchen and put it all back together. Wasn’t this supposed to be a rest day?

Exhausted, I called it a day, and pretended not to see the mess when I walked out of the kitchen. You have no clue how hard it was to walk out of this mess without cleaning up.

Listening to my body was a hard-learned skill.

Doctors kept telling me that I was overreacting, that I was fine. So, I put on a mask and pretended. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I unlearned the language of my body, so I had to relearn how my body tells me what it needs.

But my wonderful body wouldn’t shut up. My body insisted I don’t give up on figuring it out. And so I did. I found my own diagnoses, then convinced a young doctor to get me tested. I relearned the language of my body, found my limits, found what makes me feel better or worse.

Sometimes that means leaving a mess in the kitchen until the next morning. Sometimes it means canceling plans. A lot of times it means shedding expectations society has for you. And that’s okay. It can be easy to get drawn into the busy-busy mindset that is spreading everywhere.

Making things from scratch, relearning the basics, has allowed me to slow down, to appreciate the process instead of just the result. I can’t wait to see where the journey leads.

So long, and thanks for being here.