Ramblings about wanting to work

I have been feeling better than usual for the past few weeks.  That's great right?  Well, it is great, at least compared to how I've felt for the past year.  So I've been spending quite a bit of time looking through the want ads, thinking about how great it would be to find a part-time job.  Then I start thinking about what that would really entail.

I'd have to be able to respond to a set schedule--like getting up at a certain time every day.  Sounds easy enough doesn't it?  I've been doing it for the last couple of weeks, waking up early and sleeping well at night.  If only I could count on that experience.  But in my heart, I know I can't.  I am experiencing this profound improvement in my well-being, because I can sit down and rest whenever I need to.

I have the option of sleeping late if I wake up one morning feeling like I've been hit by a bus, and it WILL happen.  I just don't know when.  How many times can I go through the process of job-search, interviews, and hiring only to work a few months and have to give it all up because of my disabilities?  I want to work.  I want to work so terribly at times that I can hardly stand it, but I am unable to succeed at what the Social Security Administration calls gainful employment. 

This only adds to my symptoms of depression.  So even when I'm feeling relatively good, like I have been lately, I still have to contend with the fact that I will never be able to contribute gainfully to the finances of our household.  I have to fight off the feeling that I am a freeloader in my own home.

No matter how well I feel now, I know it's only a matter of time before I'm hit with another blow from my traitorous body and mind.  That feeling of knowing the other shoe is bound to drop nags at me constantly even when I'm at my best, which used to be great but is now a low mediocre.  It is as if my successful ability to function has gone from a symphony to a barely perceptible hum.

So to all those of you out there who suffer with chronic pain, disability, depression, or all of the above, enjoy the good times, no matter how limited they are.  It isn't going to kill me to fantasize a little about working again, as long as I understand that fantasy is all it is.  I've had my heart broken enough by trying to do something I am no longer capable of doing.  Who knows, maybe someday a miracle cure will come my way.