Fair Warning: Coping With Unexpected Visitors

I really appreciate all my lovely friends and followers online, who make every day brighter with communication that can be paced as needed, since most of us really understand M.E. and are in a similar boat.

Real friends love us for who we really are

I really appreciate other IRL (In Real Life) friends and people, too. The closest of these usually understand that ideally I need fair warning of visits, calls, etc so I can save up some "spoonie" energy to make the most of them, if at all possible.


Not everyone does make allowances, of course.  It's so difficult for the energy-rich to get their heads round the idea of "pacing". Heaven knows, it's hard enough for us to get our heads round, isn't it? Newly diagnosed or old soldiers in the field of M.E. or other challenging illnesses alike, we can find this "pacing" lark a stumbling block when faced with chaotic old "real life". (My spellchecking just discovered that I'd originally typed "fiend of M.E." instead of "field" there - a Freudian slip, eh, guys?)

Eaten by the monster of M.E.?

I can't blame friends who want to do things with me "on spec". I don't blame them. How could I? I love them and would never want to snub or hurt them! They make life worth living, even at the toughest times when I can't see them at all.

Friends - something to celebrate and treasure! But that does mean energy outlay!

When they see me, it's because I'm strong enough to see them. I guess it's harder for them to picture me after they've gone, or I'm back indoors etc, exhausted and nigh-on catatonic with post-exertional malaise and sickening pain and nausea.

They're off again, by then, getting on with their own busy lives, unaware what it's cost me to spend some time being "my old normal self" for a bit! I would rather it was this way round than them never coming or contacting or doing something off the cuff for fear of making me ill! That wouldn't be living at all, like times when I'm housebound altogether through illness. 

Real life doesn't always support "pacing". It's full of spontaneity and serendipity. Just like me at my best!

A mate of my Mum's gave a sticker to all the lasses in their little prayer and fellowship group that I'm sometimes physically a part of, when I'm well enough to make the two bus journeys that lie between our villages. It's one of those yellow stickers sponsored by the South Yorkshire Police (and no doubt other forces round the country) that warns door-knockers:

"DOORSTOPPERS: SAY NO TO DOORSTEP CALLERS.
We will NOT buy at this doorstep from doorstep callers...
...if you don't have an appointment THEN DON'T BOTHER KNOCKING"

I'd had it stuck on the door less than a day when two separate doorstep hawkers knocked as usual. Nobody reads it. I still struggle to the door if I can (usually if I ignore it it'll turn out to be a colleague or friend, by sod's law, a bit like phone calls!)


Being an accommodating sunny soul, I usually find myself having the conversation about unwanted double glazing or the unwelcome switch of utility company anyway, when I'm well enough to stand and talk at the same time. The only time I respectfully pointed out the yellow notice, the young guy outside in the rain looked so crushed, it was me who felt bad for hours after! 

It's afterwards, frazzled and slumped that I'll passive-aggressively remember why many would just have grumpily gesticulated at the notice and slammed the door. (If you knew me in real life, you'd realise that is just NEVER going to happen!). So I end up looking like this instead:

The only folks who seem to read the warning are visiting friends or colleagues from church who laugh and say, as I let them in:


"Hahaha - should I go away again? I haven't got an appointment!"


I guess the hint's never taken by the people who actually DO rob and bankrupt energy like a vacuum sucking up crumbs! This notice says nothing about illness on it, of course. Maybe there are so many stickers about from "Beware of the Dog" to "Wet Paint" that door-to-door workers simply filter them all out?

OK. Maybe not...

I'd rather NOT put anything about my illness on the outside of my house, apart from 'M.E. Awareness' posters that don't identify me as an M.E. sufferer. Believe me, that's not because I'm ashamed. Simply because I don't want to make myself more vulnerable to opportunists. 

Well, this morning's energy is already accounted for in blogging (and all the checking, rechecking, blurred vision, rests, false starts, rechecking, rechecking, correcting, losing it all by accident etc that entails!). I had to save a thimbleful of energy "spoons" today, as it's Thursday, to put out the recycling bin. Then the box. Then the bag for newspapers. Not all at once! Mercifully I don't have much in any of them this week. But summer's going fast, and I can't afford not to have the green bin emptied, ready for any moment between raindrops when my Mum can help with the mowing and I happen to have the strength to dead-head a rose!

Somebody else with the same idea!

So that's me spent for now. People think my doorbell is disconnected as a joke. As if! We need to keep our energy recycled too!


Fair warning. Can't say fairer than that?

 Please can I recycle my energy and cells while we're at it?