It’s a late winter day with snow still fresh from a blizzard. The sun has emerged brilliant, reflecting off the white expanse. None of this moves me. Leah and Larry, my hearty neighbors, have invited me to go cross-country skiing in the state forest across from our home. A year ago, I would have leapt at this invitation. Now I drag myself out of bed. I barely have the physical energy to get to the car, let alone propel my body against the will of gravity up any of the notoriously steep hills nearby. I don’t revel as I usually do in the speed of the descent. I return home emotionally and physically spent. My body feels as if it lives on Jupiter, where gravity is much more intense; an hour’s activity leaves me exhausted. No endorphins. All I want to do is sleep. I feel geriatric—my muscles fatigued, bones aching, breath short. I also feel strangely disembodied, as if my brain doesn’t compute messages from nerve endings and muscle sinews. I get no relief or joy from physical exertion. I miss this greatly.

Simple everyday conceptual tasks I’ve taken for granted are nearly impossible. One day, it takes me three full hours to unpack groceries. Shopping malls and supermarkets are impossible; there are too many choices. How long can I stand in an aisle trying to choose between peanut butters? The large or the small? The organic or the inorganic? The cheap or the higher priced? These decisions paralyze me.

I stop doing laundry. It’s too overwhelming to go through the sequencing it takes to fold, sort, and put away clothes. In the office and the bedroom and the kitchen, things pile up. It’s too hard to remember where I put them; it’s easier to have things in plain sight. But I hate this mess. The chaos makes me crazy, and I am embarrassed to invite anyone over into this scene.

I fear the kids will get lost in the life-sucking vortex of our home. So we drive the forty miles roundtrip from our rural abode to spend the day with loving, tolerant friends in town. These trips away from the hearth drive my husband crazy. He needs unstructured time to recharge and feels exhausted by my demands to keep moving. But home is a dark, oxygen-starved cave for me; I have to breathe to live.