I took 3 days off this past weekend. First 3 days I have taken off since August. I burnt out, had rammed my head into too many walls and had enough shit flung at me that I felt like a monkey in a zoo. But it took every ounce of everything I had not to sneak a peek, here and there. I am computer addicted! Facebook addicted! Fun House addicted! On Friday I actually had one of the more productive days I have had in a while where my personal life is concerned. Cleared a nice pile of paperwork off my desk. But I was still so raw from the last few depressing weeks and the very low low Thursday became, that I did not dare venture into Leah Tyler Fibro Blogger land. So I met my addiction half-way and took a gander at that other Facebook account. The one I never go to. The one full of the people I grew up with. The one under my married name that is comprised of high-school friends and college comrades and people from my career years in San Francisco. I scanned pages, wrote messages, attacked walls. I looked at pictures of myself in high-school and wondered why my hair was so big? I saw baby pictures, man 'o man did I see baby pictures! I saw posts regarding careers and vacations and buying houses and traveling to exotic locales for work. One friend had surgery and was anxious to get back to the gym the following week. What? A few were still up to banter with but I felt as though I was in a foreign land. Everyone was still human, but we were not on the same wave-length or speaking the same language. And I got a pang in my heart for my Fun House.
For I realized I know my Fibro friends better, and they know me far better, than most on that page, close family and the few friends I keep up with excluded. I had nothing in common with them. My best friends from high-school posting about a girl trip we could all take together. But I am not fun anymore, I wanted to say. I don't party and sleep 10 hours a night and complain about hurting a lot. Yes there is still the same person at the core, but if I am going anywhere it is with my husband and it is to chill, not mix margaritas in my mouth while my brain rocks my skull. And not just because I have to, but because I want to. I am working on my career in a far different way. My children are canine and I am more than happy about that. We are not buying a house or going on a fancy vacation anytime soon. 6 all-inclusive days in the ICU with 2 MRI's and CT's and spinal taps was my "vacation" last year. There is just no money for anything else. And as I logged off, letting that girl float back into the vacancy she exists in, I shed a few tears.
I don't know what my life would be like had I not gotten sick. My husband was in college the first 5 years of our marriage. He graduated and got a good job. I was working my way up the corporate cosmetics ladder and we were finally, for the first time ever, going to be able to pay our bills each month! We bought Yorkie, figuring we had a couple of years to mentally and financially prepare for babies. And then 2 weeks after he graduated I got sick. In a way I feel it was inevitable. For if that crazy week of his graduation, the party, moving, getting a really wild 10-week-old Yorkie puppy and my Grandfather passing away had not occurred, the "trigger event" would have found me eventually. It was just the way I lived my life. Fast and hectic. Ambitious and big. I laugh now and say thank God I did it then, for I sure could not now! But examining the vast difference between my life and those friends from the past made me take pause, and I found a gratefulness in my heart that my depressed self had been suppressing. A gratefulness that I had found a community I fit in to. As I shut down the computer and got ready to snuggle up to my husband in bed a long-forgotten song popped into my head. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be. It reminded me that I am not the master controller of my life. All I know is I will continue to do the best I can with what I am given, I will forgive myself as I forgive those that have hurt me and I will take some time off every once and a while to stop and smell the roses. For they sure smell a lot better than that monkey shit.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
Again you hit the nail on the head. Yes, yes, yes. I concur with everything you have written. I love reading your blog because it reminds me of hope. It reminds me of the community growing and fighting together. It reminds me that it's okay that we're not "normal." Who in the heck wants to be normal anyway? ;)We're pretty super- us fibro gals. Thank you for your honesty Leah. <3
ReplyDeleteEveryone was still human, but we were not on the same wave-length or speaking the same language.
ReplyDeleteFor I realized I know my Fibro friends better, and they know me far better, than most on that page, close family and the few friends I keep up with excluded. I had nothing in common with them.
This it home for me. Wow is about all I can say at the moment and I need to soak it in :-) Thanks for being you!
I feel very self assured after reading several of your post. Please keep on posting. I have finally found a place where I am not alone in my pain. Found others who know what I am going through.
ReplyDelete