How Life Unfolds

I am disgusted with the kind of housewife I have become. Nothing is ever clean. Something is always in a varying state of disarray. Bags of stuff, oh so much stuff. Other peoples stuff, and my ambitious dreams I thought I could tackle, but can't, piled high in the corner of the room. If the counter tops are clean, the floor is dirty and if the sheets are freshly dressed, the bathroom towels need changing. There is no oh-so-fresh feeling as I walk from room to room, fluffy just-vacuumed carpet pillowing every step. Each room dusted and shined and polished and fussed over down to the finest detail. Clutter concealed and exact-trinket-placement revealed. Oh I remember those days so fondly. When I could clean the bathtub AND toilet in the same day! And then mop the floors and polish the mirror and counter top and spit-shine the sink. Next move onto the bedroom, living, dining and kitchen, throwing the furniture polish, bucket and Lysol under the kitchen sink with an aplomb reserved for a well-finished task. And then leaving to enjoy the rest of my day. The simple act of even writing that has made me tired! Oh boundless and youthful energy, I miss you! I did not know how precious you were when I had you, and all I can do is look back and know I used you and abused you to my heart's content!

Is this good or bad? I can certainly say I lived, but was the kind of living I was doing worth it? What would I have done differently if I had known sickness was going to swallow me at 28? Its interesting how the life you envision for yourself as a child morphs so grotesquely around what actually happens. My plans went one way when I graduated from high school. But my anticipations were elsewhere. I dreamed of Louisiana, the romantic and mystical southern United States. The bayou, French Quarter, Burbon Street, vampires! All the mythical legends I had grown up on. I was even accepted to the University of New Orleans. Regretfully I lacked the guts to transplant myself 2,000 miles away from all that I had ever known. I stayed in my home state, satiating my quest for travel and adventure with the promise of a semester abroad in Europe. That never happened, though. I moved away to college, met a great guy, got into debt, drank a lot of beer and fell in love, in that order. I graduated and we spent the first 5 years of our marriage with my husband working his way towards his bachelors degree (see during his college years he just did the beer part, not the college). And then the next 5 years I have been ill. How many times can I look back at the "turning points" in life? Those pivotal moments you recall and see the fork in the road with amazing clarity. A fork that was obscured from view when the choices actually had to be made.

What I got is nowhere near what I thought it would be. That is what happens when you live life, I suppose. I always pictured children and a career and a white picket fence for my future, certain I was going to take the path most traveled, of least resistance. But somewhere along the way I stepped off and started forging my own. And then this illness hit and forced me into a terrible offshoot all alone on this long and windy trail of Fibromyalgia. So believe it or not, each floor I mop shiny, each buffet I buff clean, is one step closer to normalcy. A hacksaw through the brush to find the path of my existence. What I had decided my life was to be about, not Fibromyalgia's dictating claws directing me. And lets face it, if I have not come to terms with a messy house at this point on that long and windy trail, then I really have learned nothing at all.

Thanks for joining.
Leah