Weariness

The last year…
Especially the last several months have been exhausting as my mother’s health declined and as we moved my wife’s father from his apartment to an assisted living unit. I lived with a weariness which a nap or a good night’s sleep couldn’t fix. I would get up and go to work and go through the motions sometimes scrapping what felt like the bottom of the barrel for the attention and focus I needed for the moment or the task at hand.
It was not…
Is not…
A great way to live. 

As I have reflected on this in the days since my mother died, I have found myself thinking about those who live each day with a chronic pain which drains energy and strength or those who are day in/day out care givers for others or those who wake up each morning to the worry about how they will meet the demands or the necessities of the day for themselves or their children. Food. Shelter. Safety. They live with a weariness with no end in sight and which I can only begin to understand.

I realize, in a way I did not before, that weariness is so much more than just being tired. It drains you to the core of who you are and shrinks the world around you.