Knowing M.E. Knowing You

Everyone, I wish you to meet my friend Sophie, AKA The Sophster!  You may have seen her sometimes inhabiting my comments section with the Gravatar Shiningstar85 and I think it is high time that I bring her to your attention.   Now our Sophie suffers from the debilitating M.E. otherwise known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Quoting http://www.patient.co.uk  ‘Chronic fatigue syndrome/ME is a condition where you have long-term disabling tiredness (fatigue). Most people with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME also have one or more other symptoms such as muscular pains, joint pains, disturbed sleep patterns, poor concentration, headaches. The cause is not known’.

Although we have never physically met, we keep in contact via Facebook, where it was that I first took the plunge and invited myself to be her friend with the hilariously inaccurate promise of ‘I’m not weird’, of course that was a complete lie but we have carried on talking anyway.  Since 21st August 2009, in fact.  We have had some random chats down the years, which have taken us outside the realms of normality but it was this recent paragraph which especially caught my eye…

I think I could relate to the whole stargazing thing – How they are so far away, a bit like friends I feel close to, yet still so far away from. the same with the outside world.  if I’m close to the window, I’m inches from the outside world yet I so rarely get out there, movement makes me feel so bad.

I don’t think I will be alone in recognising the melancholy of this passage, but also the way in which she succinctly analyses and defines how her body may physically struggle but her imagination is completely free to ride the winds of whimsy.  I find it an extraordinary juxtaposition to compare the vastness of space with the thinness of a window that may seem akin to something like a barred prison cell window preventing the experience of the outside world.

Inspiration comes from many places but when you meet someone who doesn’t have the strength to nip downstairs for a glass of water, let alone go down to the pub or plunge into the crowds for a shopping spree, it brings to the fore how much we take for granted and how many of the simple things in life we miss.  Maybe we should take more interest in what we perceive mundane and perhaps we should throw off the shackles of blindness and embrace the beauty in everything we see.

At the moment Sophie isn’t really ready to do a blog, which is perhaps the best way to allow your imagination to reach the towering heights of independence (which has plenty of elbow room) and strange new worlds, not that I am biased on anything. In fact she does take time to get around to each new post but this is also due to some dodgy internet troubles, however I hold out hope that one day we shall see a new shining star on our horizons (sites) and that we shall all see things through new eyes and a new perspective.