Every picture hides a story

Got energy in spades...but what about an hour or two later?

I posted this photo as a joke on Twitter and Facebook today. I'd simply taken it to show my Mum the new dirt-cheap shovel I'd just had delivered from Amazon.

When she comes to help me with little garden tasks like cleaning up under the wild bird feeders, gathering leaves, a spot of snow clearing from the path to the door, a shovel is something my household toolkit has lacked for many years.

I've a dustpan. Too flimsy and small. 

I've a spade, too heavy and flat.

So, I decided to buy this cheap shovel to make life easier. Not for me, usually, but certainly for those generous, kind and fit enough to lend a hand when they can. I need a small step ladder for the same reason. Not because I could climb it, as I am at the moment. But folks who come to help with little household jobs from time to time aren't all as tall as I am!


The joke was that I was imagining this image of me brandishing the shovel is what an intruder might reasonably be expected to be confronted with in the middle of the night, with this lethal looking weapon on site!


My natural affability tells everyone who knows me this would be the furthest thing from the truth. I captioned the photo:

"They'd be shaking in their shoes. Not!"


But the punchline, from an M.E. point of view, is even further from the obvious message this image conveys on the surface.


The shovel isn't very heavy. But within an hour or two, after just lifting for this shot, my wrists and chest are on fire, the following day, from the effort of posing for it. That's the part nobody sees when we're gripped by myalgic encephalomyelitis.


We all tend to wear our outside face for the world. For me, that's the genuinely jokey, positive, laugh-a-minute, glass-half-full face. That's one reason even friends sometimes forget what that positive energy expenditure actually costs me. That's what you never see; what you don't see happens once the shutter has clicked closed and the camera is laid aside because your wrists are too weak to lift a fork or your balance too shaky to stand or sit without nausea.


Every picture tells a story.

Every picture hides a story too.

Like the iceberg we say we've "seen" when we only glimpse the tip above the frozen ocean.

The camera doesn't lie; but it can't always show the whole truth.

It's a snapshot in time; but M.E. is a fluctuating illness, within a year, a month, an hour, moment to moment.


I still want to make you smile, like I always did when I was well enough to bounce.

But please be careful you don't judge the book by its cover, when a friend with M.E. puts their best foot forward for you. Or I might need that shovel after all! Now that IS a joke, honest! :D