24. I'm not a gardener ...

Once I planted a seed. The seed was tended by me and a small group of seed-nurturing-experts and we helped it to grow into a flower that blossomed in a small but very precious garden. From that flower, others grew and they multiplied in the garden and gave a beautiful scent and a bright array of colours. When the flowers spread out of the garden I could no longer be the gardener. ME stopped me from even tending the original flower. The gardener who took over has great skill and has tended the flowers well as they have spread far afield.

I'm not a gardener. I used an allegory here to describe my work and how I have lost it to ME, because I don't want to identify myself. I am frightened I won't get my ill-health pension. I use a false name on Twitter. I don't put a name on my blog. I don't trust the internet; someone from the pension agency will see my writing or my tweeting and connect that it's me and say, well if she can write ...

I am writing this lying flat in my bed, it hurts my wrists and my hands, tires my brain. That I can write helps to stop frustration creeping in; that I can use FB and Twitter keeps me connected when my world has shrunk to the inside of my house with occasional must-do outings. My family, my loving and lovable hubbie and my funny girls keep me going; the youngest one's amazing baking, the middle one's incredible dinners and the oldest one's hilarious messages from student life. And the on-line humour that shines through the hardship of so many people with ME keeps me buoyant, when I can't believe I've had to leave my garden and I might never return to it.