thoughts for the new year............

Thoughts for a new year..............This year I want to have more fun, more laughs and more time with my husband.  I want to be more patient and less critical.  I want to take a Zumba class outside the confines of my living room!  I will audition more.  I will be more courageous.  I will ski with my boys, build snowmen, and be in the moment with them.  I will muddle through flare ups and...remember that I am still me even when I am sick.  I will look for the worth in others, as well as in myself.  I want to paint, dance, act, write and strive to be the mother I was meant to be.  I will be my own best friend and consequently will have more to give to others.  I will pray more and worry less.  I will keep on walking, stumbling, crawling even when I feel I have lost my way.  I will be cheerful.  I will remember that we are all just human beings doing our best in this world.  I will know that I am enough. 

 

The Honest Truth

This has to be one of the worst flares I've had.  Maybe not.  My memory doesn't seem to be cooperating with me very well lately.  I haven't written in a long time due to the pain and fatigue.  You know what?  That's not even the real reason.  Truthfully, I have been afraid to write.  I'm very aware that everything I write is read by people.  This can be a detriment to honesty.  Then again, how much honesty are people ready for?  How much am I ready to admit?  I like to consider myself a patient, optimistic, determined person.  Here's the thing, though.  Lately, I don't feel like any of these things.  I am trying.  But, sometimes I don't feel like trying.  I feel like all I can do is survive the day.  And surviving a day or two is one thing.  But when you begin to string days to weeks and weeks to months of surviving, life becomes just that; survival. 

I am fed up.  Anger has erupted in me like never before in these past several weeks.  Sadness has overcome me in a very deep way.  For a person who has often had trouble crying, tears have been drowning me.  I feel alone, lost and (here comes the truth none of us want to hear) shrouded in hopelessness.  My children need me.  My husband is working in overdrive.  My house is a mess.  Christmas is fast approaching.  Everything is spiraling out of control and I'm in too much pain and too exhausted to so anything about it.  I want to make cookies, decorate and play with my children.  I want to make my husband a nice meal for his birthday.  I want to dust and do laundry like a normal person.  Forgive me, but I do not think I am asking for too much.  I just want more of a life than existing until bedtime when I crumble into the sheets and hope and pray for relief. 

Of course I am grateful for a home, my healthy happy children, a wonderful husband and that I do not have a fatal illness.  But, does that mean that I also am not allowed to want more?  We Fibromyalgia folks are too often criticized for complaining, malingering, exaggerating, and being attention seekers. 

The hell with it.  I am complaining.  I am angry and sad and feeling desperate.  I'm exhausted.  Like I have the flu 24/7 exhausted.  Like walking to the kitchen and back and shaking from over exertion exhausted.  I hurt.  Pain like knives are being stabbed into my neck and back.  The kind of pain that literally takes my breath away and leaves me nauseous. 

This is what I wake up to and deal with day in and out. I pray for sleep to give me respite.  This is the only escape I have.  Some nights are not as kind as others. 

So there.  I threw up all over the page and onto you, my readers.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry this is not an entry with some kind of positive message.  I'm sorry I cannot be a role model today.  I'm sorry I cannot inspire anyone. 

Today I just can't.  I'm just trying to get through the day.  Again.  Trying to muster up a little speck of hope for tomorrow. 

This is real.  My illness is real.  My pain is real.  This entry is real. 

Honest and true.