Smell the Roses

By Max Fincher
Looking back, I dont know if I can recall things as well as I used to. Your parents being
parents are always complimenting your attributes, your athleticism, intelligence, your ability to
climb up the rope of a tire swing For me, I was always lauded for my capacity to retain the
minutest of details that no one had any reason to memorize; what month, day of the week, time
of day we left for that trip, saw that movie, met a friend. I was able to remember with pinpoint
accuracy these extraneous facts without even trying; they just came to me. And being an
impressionable ten-year-old, I thought that was the coolest thing, trying at every chance I had to
impress my friends with my unwavering memory.
Nowadays, I struggle with simple conversations, forgetting words every other sentence,
always at the tip of my tongue but seemingly lost, forever out of reach beyond an invariable wall
of haze.
My memory may not be what it once was, but I can at least recall with some clarity the
day when I began to take note of a subtle yet portentous change. I remember driving home from
tae kwon do with my Dad, a day, really, just like any other; I had been going for a year or two by
then and had been making progress. I was eleven or twelve at this point, so I was by no means a
legitimate fighter by any stretch of the imagination; it was just good athletic fun (although,
thankfully, I am able to recall a time when I drop-kicked a neighborhood kid who decided to
scare me and a friend of mine walking home in the dark, knocking the wind and dignity out of
him).
Its almost impossible to say when it started; maybe Ive had it my whole life and just
never knew it till then, but I knew then and there, driving home that something was off. It was
hard to place, but I noticed it most as the days began to wane, feeling as if my energy, bit by bit,
was being sapped. I think for a time, as a ten-year-old would, I shrugged it off and thought
nothing of it; I was simply exhausted from a long day, and would liven up as soon as I got some
rest.
However, it had reached a point where I felt the need to say something, bring it to
someones attention, and my Dad certainly took note of it. But it wasnt bad enough to warrant
going to a doctor and eventually, I think, it went under the radar and I carried on with my life.
How little I knew then, that a little tiredness would come to change my life.
It became all too clear as time went by that this wasnt any normal kind of exhaustion.
Once I hit puberty, it was as if my body was crashing from the greatest sugar high imaginable; I
felt it in my bones, in my voice, in my head, and nothing I did could alleviate it; where once it
had been minor, perceptible only if I took note of it, now it had become ubiquitous, inescapable
from my daily life. It followed me wherever I went, whatever I did. I couldnt sleep it off; no
amount of rest could take it away from me.
From then on, everything went downhill and my life would irrevocably never be the
same. Upon completing my first year of middle school, I came to the realization that I wasnt
going to be able keep up with my studies much longer in a public school setting and that the only
option I had was to be homeschooled. For the first couple years my condition was relatively
stable; by now I had seen a handful of doctors, neither of whom could definitively pinpoint the
root cause of my debilitating fatigue, but through a series of tests concluded that I was suffering
from something symptomatic of an autoimmune disease.

But it was in my first year of high school that things got progressively worse. Despite my
relative freedom when it came to doing schoolwork, I found by that point that I could no longer
keep up with my studies. And not only that, a newer symptom had emerged that further hindered
my life.
Not only had I stopped my education altogether due to my chronic fatigue, I was now
suffering from a kind of anxiety that was also symptomatic of my autoimmunity. When youre
under duress of some sort that could be threatening to your well-being, your body goes into a
state of alert, pumping adrenaline if need be, known as fight or flight. Imagine for a moment that
sensation; weve all been in those kinds of situations before, where your heart is beating, your
palms are sweaty and youre whole body is prepared to fend something off or to make a run for
it. Eventually, this feeling dies down and everything goes back to normal. Not so with me.
Every day I live with clammy hands, invariable sweating, clenched jaw and debilitating
anxiety triggered by the most trivial day to day occurrences; going out of the house, talking with
people, even those that Im friends with can send me into a state of fight or flight.
Not to seem dark, but looking back on that particular period of my life, Im astonished
that I made it through something like that. From ages fifteen to twenty, I was, for all intents and
purposes, a recluse. In the few occasions, usually family get-togethers and even rarer outings,
when people would shoot the breeze and ask me what I had been up to, I would give the same
anguishing response: nothing. I literally did nothing with my life for five straight years. Why?
Because I couldnt; the will to do anything had been sapped from me. I say this without the least
bit of hyperbole that when I think back on those dark years, literally spending days watching TV
and/or playing video games without drive or purpose, languishing in my room with no end to this
hell in sight, that I have a physical reaction as dread washes over me.
How is my life now? Is it better? I answer with a hesitant yes; my life is markedly better
now compared to the abysm that was my later teenage years. When I think about it, that time of
my life, my adolescence, the high school experience, so informative and identity-shaping, was
deprived from me and I feel as if I know less about myself because of it; who I am, what I want
in life, what kind of people I relate to and want to be around, all of those important details that
we discover about ourselves during that instrumental point in our lives.
Yes, I say, I am doing better in comparison; I was able to take the SATs, something I was
sure I would not be able to make an adequate score on, get into a college and continue to do well
in my studies. Thats leaps and bounds better than what Id been capable of just a few short years
before.
But despite all the gains that have been made during the last of couple of years, theres so
much more progress to be had. The distinction between now and when I was ten is so sharp it
hurts just to think about it. I use the word normal a lot whenever I have to describe how I felt
before my symptoms began to set in, and my advances in school notwithstanding, I still dont
feel normal. Every morning is the same; in spite of a solid eight to nine hours of sleep I may
get on a good night, I feel as if I havent slept a wink, lying there sometimes over an hour, trying
with all my willpower to get out of bed but, more times than not, having to resign myself to the
fatigue in a state of limbo between wakefulness and sleep.
Limbo, actually, is a good way to describe living with this interminable fatigue; a halfreality, where I can perceive the world before me just fine, but can only experience it with my
sensory qualities, sight, sound, smell functioning half as well as they used to, as if they have
difficulty registering anything beyond that wall of haze. Having lived in this world for such an
extensive period of time of my life, Ive come to adjust to it; its only when I look back on my

childhood that I recognize the contrast between the world as I saw it then and the world as I see it
now.
When you have half of the energy you normally would, you cant really do much day to
day. Fortunately, Im at least able to attend my classes and do well enough on schoolwork, but
even then its a strain. Social situations are no different; for so long, even after I had made
friends and acquaintances in college, I would constantly bemoan how little I still interacted with
other people, thinking that I wasnt liked by anyone and that no one wanted to be around me.
Then I realized, while I had made some significant improvements socially, I had yet to reach that
point where I was hanging out with people on a near daily basis because I hadnt tried to initiate
anything on my part. The desire was there, it always has; as much as it may seem that Im in no
mood to be around anyone, as a human, I still crave human interaction. One of the most
insufferable things a person can experience is a feeling of loneliness. I had five years of it, and
Ive personally had enough of it.
But forcing myself to take the initiative is difficult; a lot of it, of course, just has to do
with my utter lack of practice when it comes to social situations, but when youve barely got the
energy in the day to write this paragraph, you dont want to do much of anything. Even when I
do happened to find myself in a social context, awkwardness and anxiety aside, I still have
difficulty managing. My ineptitude at specific social cues and signs was initially severely high;
there was a time where I thought I couldnt understand or relate to people, period, as if they were
a another species altogether, and Im still acclimating how to simply act and behave around
others, as opposed, say, to sitting alone at my desk, my only interaction being with my parents
every so often.
But whether its in an academic/club setting, at a coffee shop or merely in the comfort of
my own home, I find more times than not wishing I were back alone in my room, as I tax myself
with what little energy I have in a sometimes harrowing attempt to keep up with or simply follow
a conversion with someone. Again, limbo is almost too apt to describe it; oftentimes I like to
think of it as the conundrum or paradox of my current life, wanting more than anything to
delight in small talk with friends without a care in the world, but simultaneously feeling so
miserable that socializing is the last thing that Id want to be doing.
Also, I cant drive. As easy as getting ones license may seem, getting behind the wheel
and taking a drive through town, the act of safely driving an automobile is currently beyond me.
Anxiety is the first thing keeping me from mastering such an invaluable and necessary feat;
imagine that fight or flight experience again, but while youre on the road, moving at forty miles
per hour surrounded by several other speeding vehicles, stop signs and traffic signals. The level
of anxiety I experience on a daily basis is already almost too much for me to bear; getting behind
the wheel, literally holding my life and the lives of passengers in my very hands, the cars and
signs zooming by me at an overwhelming rate (for me at least), is enough to send me over the
edge with stress. The fact that I got into a minor wreck in the past doesnt help matters; I can still
and hear the sound of metal grinding together and feel the collision reverberating throughout the
car. Fortunately, no was hurt, but the experience still haunts me, but it was sobering experience; I
knew then and there that I wasnt in the right state of mind to be driving and I feel safer for it.
And obviously, as a twenty-something, having no license is just one more impediment to
my social life.
But its the days where Im so oversaturated with fatigue and anxiety that I cant even
function that are the worst, when all I have at my disposal is my ability simply to cope. The very
world seems out to get me, every little sensation an attack. I can seclude myself in the calmest

and safest environment and yet not even that is enough to placate me. Living almost constantly
on edge only makes me more exhausted and by a certain point I feel as if I cant take it any
longer, stuck in that hazy world with seemingly no end in sight. Thats when it hurts the most,
fearing in the midst of all of this that there wont be an to this, that Ill live out the rest of my
days never truly feeling alive.
If I were to describe the things I miss most about being normal, contrary to what most
would think (including myself), it wouldnt be the big things, like a more active social life or
being able to go out without any hint of anxiety, it would be the little things, the minute details
that we often take for granted, letting them fall into the background; the sound of rain pattering
on the rooftop, a cool breeze beneath the shade of tree, the smell of flowers in bloom on a spring
evening. Such details that make up the collective daily experience that prove that youre alive
and ease the toils of the day, showing that youre not just going through the motions like some
automaton, but living, breathing every second, making you appreciate the preciousness of life
and just how lucky you are to be here.