Freedom

I have just done something so extremely liberating I can hardly stand it. I don't know if a woman has felt freer than I do right now, since the first ERA fore-mother took off her bra and burned it! See Fibro has made a lot of changes to my lifestyle. At first it was very physical, these changes. I was in pain, could not work, cook, clean or do anything of much use. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME made simply taking a shower more than I had energy for. Emptying the dishwasher was my exciting afternoon event. Through an odd combination of acquiescence and war I have moved past that disabled state. Flash forward six years and I will have to say the Fibro I have now is a mere glimmer of the Fibro I had then. Thank God.

So now that my body is out of immediate fight or flight mode my brain is wigging, morphing. I was always a social girl. Only child until the age of 12, I spent a lot of time around adults. I had lots of friends in high-school and college. Working intimately with the general public for over a decade rounded this out. Face to face, 4" apart, I slathered on face cream and swiped on eyeshadow. I talked my way through thousands of encounters with the throngs that swept through downtown San Francisco. I was a people person. Bonafide, verified, through and through. Then all sorts of strange stuff started happening to me and I got sick. Severe trauma and pain stamped one too many times on my central nervous system, giving me Fibromyalgia. The world ceased to be an adventuresome place as constant agony overtook me; mind, body and soul. All I knew was pain. All I felt was hurt. I had to shield myself from the world, avoid it, use with caution. This retreat was subtle, but after all this time I am starting to become aware of the extent it has truly changed me. 

I can hardly stand people, they are difficult and demanding. I rant and rave about technology like a 90 year-old resistant to change. The phone ringing makes me crazy. I get overwhelmed easily. Basically I want to live solitary, undisturbed, so I can indulge myself in writing for days on end, only resurfacing when I needed a break and some amusement. I believe I have become anti-social! Today, in my final act of acceptance that this is what I need right now to continue improving my health, I turned off every ringer in my house, muted the answering machine and put my cell phone on silent. With a smile on my face I did this, my equivalent to burning that darn bra.

Thanks for joining,

Leah