It's Her Party I'll Cry If I Want To

I am shattered, wrecked, in shambles. The word flare doesn't even begin to cover it. See I was given an opportunity to keep up with a few of the more capable members of my family and wound up looking like a colossal loser. A couple ladies joined efforts to throw my mother a birthday party and were kind enough to include me in the roster of hostess'. I suppose they thought they were asking an equal, or even someone simply not as energetic as they are, but instead they got me. However good I thought I was doing, whatever triumph I had over Fibro, any illusion of being able to, just for one night, be the me I was before I became sick me, oh it's over. Crushed into the dust beneath a pair of dangerously high platformed wedges I stupidly thought I could run around in all night. I haven't felt this disabled, incapable or just plain foolish in ages. 

This entire circumstance was slated against me from the word go. Technically I should have declined to participate and just gone as a guest. But it was my mom's birthday party. In my heart of hearts I just couldn't opt out. Hell, I wish I could have thrown her the party all by myself! I really kept my contribution to a manageable level, I thought. And then came the night before the party when I went to three different grocery stores and was up until 3AM rollings beef pigs into Pillsbury blankets. And the morning where I raced around at top speed (another two stores) doing all the last minute things I hadn't done before. Then there was all the work of setting up the party. It took me all of one hour of hanging streamers and blowing up balloons before I passed the point of fibro safety. That razors edge where if you stop everything you are doing right at that very instant and sit for a day you might be okay, able to avoid a flare. No of course I kept going, and four hours later the party started. Barely two hours into the festivities I was lurching around the kitchen like a zombie searching for my dirty cookie sheets in tears. My sensory overload felt like I was at a rave on some horrible psychedelic drug that made you hurt really bad too. I didn't know where I was, what I was doing, what was going on or how to figure any of it out. And because of the darn shoes I had on I couldn't have gotten there even if I did! Thank God for my very understanding husband who got me up and out of there without delay the second I said "I gotta go." 

But I left before pictures, well before cake. Right when things were just getting going. And I was bitter about it, oh you betcha. Mad I couldn't stay, furious at the hell I knew was in store for me, the price I was destined to pay. Upset because I was incapable of contributing my fair share. My family may have been irritated I was lazy, or my paranoia made me feel that way. They may have thought I was dramatizing my situation, or my guilt made me think they did. Does it really matter? Because at the end of the day I simply didn't measure up in a world of people who do. And it makes me never want to be around them again because I feel the gap between their comprehension and my reality just can't be bridged. Some gaps are just too big. Ultimately I must say I am the one who betrayed myself. I allowed the situation to fly completely out of my control. I didn't do what I should have done which is decline to co-host, but I really didn't want to be a bad daughter, either! It's kinda absurd now, with the wonderful vision of hindsight, that I just thought I could give it the ol' college try and the effort required to pull it off would be mine to spare. So here I sit bewildered, confused, gun-shy and traumatized, wondering once again where I fit into a world of healthy expectation. I don't know when I am going to feel human again. All I can say is hopefully in time for my husband's birthday on Friday...

Thanks for joining,

Leah