I'm A Space-Bound Rocket-Ship And Your Hearts The Moon...

Dear Eminem,

Thank you for your transparency. Thank you for having the guts to wear your heart not just on your sleeve but cloaking and surrounding yourself in it. You show a vulnerability in your hard and profane "kill-a-bitch-by-driving-off-a-cliff-with-her-strapped-up-ass-in-the-trunk" ways. You spoke your life into your lyrics. Your messy, complicated and dirty life, delivered with a meticulously twisted mastery of the spoken word. Your mind combined with your gift melded with your experience has been honest and raw since the very beginning, and this latest masterpiece is no exception.

My husband has been through his own share of self-imposed and randomly delivered misery in his life. The chronicles you tell delve deeply into the complexities of human behavior and emotion. Many of those stages have paralleled with his personal journey to free himself from his own demons. Album after album, he has identified with your rise, height, fall, rebuild and rebirth. The cycles in his life mirror your passion-fueled nightmares so eloquently laid out on tracks ready for purchase on the nearest computer or at the closest corner store.

So I want to say thank you. Thank you for having the guts to claim your life the way you have. Thank you for your honest and horrifyingly-frank recounts of your emotions and experiences. Thank you for the bravery it took to lay it all out there and to do it your way so your words can reach those in despair and pain that you will never even meet.

Sincerely,
Leah

Streamlining My Supplements

I have cut back on a few supplements because I don't have enough money to keep them in supply as well as wanting to simplify this process to make it easier on my mind and body. Take less pills and eat more vegetables, right? Duhh! Supplements are my security blanket of health. I do feel quite a difference in my mood, energy and stability when I wean off the protocol, so for the foreseeable future this is what I take daily:

~Whole food multi-vitamin & mineral (general nutrition)
~Calcium/Magnesium/Vitamin D (general nutrition)
~Amino acids (general nutrition)
~Selenium (antioxidant/trace mineral)
~Fish oil (general nutrition/EFA)
~Lecithin (neurotransmitter/liver/triglyceride)
~Pro-biotics (immune & fungal balance)
~L-lysine (viral suppression)
~N-acetyl-cystine (immune booster/balances Lysine/liver)
~Pancreatin (pancreatic enzymes)
~Milk thistle (liver support)
~Maca root (nourishes endocrine system/balances hormones)
~DHEA (hormonal pre-cursor)
~Tumeric (inflammation/antioxidant)
As needed:
~Valerian Root (pain & sleep)
~Epicor (immune booster)

I am on a good cocktail for my conditions. Check out Swanson Vitamins. They have great prices on some really good supplements and I even get a bunch of organic/natural body products from them at a deep discount. I am slowly loosing the 30 lbs. Lyrica packed on and feel mentally balanced with a minimum of pain. My pain levels are greatly affected by sleep, activity, hormones, diet and stretching, so it truly is up to me to keep myself healthy. When I first got sick I wanted a cure. I wanted a pill, surgery, treatment, anything to just whisk this sickness away. I was raised in the USA during the 1980's and 90's and that is just how modern medicine works, right? You go to the doctor and tell them what is wrong, they run a bunch of tests and tell you what you have and how to get better. NOT WITH THIS SON-OF-A-BITCH! Just getting a diagnosis was a nightmare, let alone successful treatments.

I have now come to believe that what I was actually suffering from was a sickness deep inside my soul. The virus had penetrated the nucleus of every cell in my body and created a sickness so buried it was born out of the pure essence of who I was. Getting better required some pretty heavy medications, but the purging of all the garbage inside me and all I had to do to dispel it is more telling of its true origin. I had to vomit the hurt, betrayal, anger, fear, anxiety, unjustness, sadness, disappointment and self-righteousness out of my life and begin to build anew. And that is when I finally started to get better!

Thanks for joining,
Leah

A Big Fat Surprise

I spent the day lounging at the pool in the mild Arizona heat of 108 degrees, sipping on some strange concoction of vodka and Malibu Rum topped off with Squirt (not one I would recommend), enjoying the day with one of my dearest friends. We were idly chatting and simultaneously attempting to cool off and crisp to a golden bronze while enjoying a mild buzz when she informed me that a co-worker of ours was terminal with cancer. "WHAT???" I proclaimed, hand fluttering to my mouth. "No! What? Are you sure? OHMYGOD! What???" were the only words that tumbled from me. I was shocked, deeply saddened and terribly confused. She was surprised that I did not know and filled me in on the specifics. Stage 4, not long to live, chemo and radiation and surgery already exhausted. I warmly recollected this lady as a gentle, kind and dear woman and attempted to place her into this circle of ugly illness and shortened life. It was just a wrong fit and I became quite upset.

I felt like I had just learned a terrible, dirty secret about a good friend, one that I did not really want to know. It changed my perception of who she was and challenged my idea of reality as a whole. But it also gave me a bit of perspective. I sit here and bitch and moan and cry and fume about the impact of Fibromyalgia on my life and how it has totally screwed it up, and my feelings are very valid and true. But to imagine this dear lady, staring death right in the face, that still gets up every day and puts her game face on and heads off to work to guarantee her health insurance was more than I could bear. As a wave of gratefulness washed over me I realized I DO NOT count my blessings nearly often enough, and I do not tell those I love that I love them nearly enough, and I take for granted so much that I have, and although Fibromyalgia has been one mean son-of-a-bitch, it is not a disease that will kill me. I will keep this dear lady in my thoughts and prayers and hope for the best possible outcome for her and her family. I will also try to keep my perspective, marching ahead but always stopping to lend a hand to those along the way that demonstrate even the slightest need. For the truthful thing to say is that Fibromyalgia is not as bad as it gets.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

I Shoplifted!

I went to my favorite local health food store this past week and my first stop before hitting the dairy case was to grab some incense. I proceeded with the rest of my shopping trip, checked out and went to grab the keys to my car from inside my purse. I opened my bag to begin fishing through the mayhem and sitting right on top of everything was the incense!? I asked my husband if he had put it there, he had not. I racked my brain trying to figure out how it had gotten in there...as it is slowly dawning on me that in my spaced-out medication-dazed-Fibromyalgia-haze I had most likely put it inside my purse instead of in the cart! Still not willing to admit that my auto-pilot had failed me so, I frantically scanned my receipt, hoping I had somehow paid for it though I had no recollection of how it had come to reside in my purse. No dice, not on the receipt. Cold panic grips my heart as I realize I had just shoplifted! So I grabbed my wallet and the incense and headed back into the store and got in line. I paid for my $1.50 box of incense, left the store and went on my way. My husband asked me what they said when I told them I had left the store without paying for it and I looked at him incredulously and proclaimed, "You think I told them?!".

This breakdown of thought to action could get me in serious trouble. At the very least, it is extremely alarming that my brain (void of conscious thought) had directed my body to place something that was not mine into my purse. It kinda makes me question all sorts of things that I take for granted, and not just "Did I lock the front door?" or "Did I turn the coffee pot off?" kinda stuff. What really big lapse am I capable of "unconsciously" committing? How can you even begin to explain something like that? "Sorry officer, I just paid for $96 worth of groceries but felt it necessary to steal a $1.50 box of incense!" It terrifies me to wonder how much of my life I spend tooling around in this daze. I guess all is well that ends well. I did not actually steal anything, but I did manage to scare the bejesus out of myself and start to worry about all sorts of "unconscious" actions that could be happening at any time.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

I Don't Want To Be With Me Ahora Mismo

I am mad. I am snippy and critical and paranoid and bitchy. I am constantly nagging my husband, irritated with my family and deluded about myself. I am confused and unsatisfied and restless and snappy. I am experiencing labored breathing, body pain and stiffness and a headache, but mostly mental chaos. I feel directionless and unaccomplished and scattered and just plain unhappy. I feel like everyone thinks they are entitled to a piece of me and I don't want to give any away! I want to hide in the corner with my tail between my legs and lick my wounds and bare my teeth to anyone that comes looking for me, needing me, expecting from me.

This monthly cycle is leveling my playing field once again, and I am getting really damn sick of this! It's like going to the gym twice a month. You never really make any progress, just keep warming up without advancing. That is how I feel about my life. I am working so hard to improve, marching toward the life I want, practicing discipline and re-routing my impulses and parenting my inner-child. I will process so much and then...BAM!...a week and a half of hormonal realignment and it is all undone. I have made so many lists and charts and graphs over the years, plans for the future and how if I just do this or just do that I will be successful and finally become this magical, happy and productive person I feel is lurking right behind the door of worn-in dysfunction. I am seeking to become this perfect housewife and employee and...oh gosh, I can't even begin the nitpicking litany of all that I wish to be, it makes my stomach roll and head pound! It makes me want to go to sleep and never think again of everything that I should be or do.

So all this serves to tell me that I need to calm down! I mentally scan my inventory of substances to dull this menstrual tantrum I am so cocooned in, but I am not getting up to take anything. I am sick of always having to take something! It's almost as though I enjoy sitting here and wallowing in my misery, my pathetic, hormone-reactive misery. I am overwhelmed with the puppies and money problems and work and obligation and expectation and eating bad and too much. I am Downer Debbie, Ebenezer Scrooge and Groundhog Day grouchy. I want to feel light and free. Happy, at peace, flowing with life-force and glowing with excitement. I want to rejoice in all my blessings and appreciate my husband and grow our relationship and grow our life. Yet I find I am stalling out on all of these. It makes me want to make a drink or take a smoke or pop a pill to gain perspective, blessed hazy perspective. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and a vodka-ruby grapefruit cocktail may indeed be just what the doctor ordered, or at very least the only way to exist in harmony with myself right now.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

Bubble Gum Life

It all started when I first saw The Girls Next Door. I was introduced to a life of fluffy-white-cloud bubble-gum-pink rainbows-and-unicorns. It was a life of luxury and mindless care. It was about flaunting beauty, fun, youth and sex. There was no want for money, but its exploitation was mildly minimized as well. Anything these girls desired was readily available with the butterfly flutter of a kohl rimmed eyelash or the "oops!" of an itty-bitty-bikini spill. But a genuine kindness of heart was represented frequently and abundantly as well. I watched three busty-bleached-blonde babes frolic and flounce amidst the backdrop of old Hollywood and soft-core porn. Initially I was not sure if they offended my feminine sensibilities or embraced them. They would literally bounce around up-and-down in a circle topless, squealing and giggling and holding hands. But eventually I was enraptured...in love! When I was terribly ill and disabled I began to anticipate each episode as some sort of blissful release. Release from the pain that was eternally shock-waving through my body. Release from mounting money problems and mounds of medical bills. A break from a union of hopefulness gone softly awry. Each day was a struggle just to exist in my real world, but the message Holly, Bridget and Kendra were selling was not lost on me. Life is for the taking, and for those who dare to step up and take it. The young, the beautiful, the passionate, those that expect risk and opportunity to come at them hand in hand. They also reminded me to get up off my ass and put some makeup on and fix myself up every day. Its as if there was some secret message shrouded yet embedded like the monthly caricature, reminding me that when you look good it is much easier to feel good.

Then I started "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" on a regular basis and was given a glimpse into celebutante sibling-hood unlike any I had ever even known to wish for. I saw live-or-die friendships blended among the family drama and ludicrous antics. I saw a slice of nuclear relationship that was foreign to me, and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside as Kim would guide Kourtney through some over-indulged spoiled rich-girl trauma or another. I watched the makeup/breakup dynamic the 3 sisters shared, and the meddling in each others lives, the closeness I saw in a family steeped in unconditional love.

And I realized I wanted nothing to do with sad, painful, heartbreaking or devastating anymore in my life. I had had enough. I wanted only the happy and light of heart. I would attract and give off only positive energy, good energy. I have experienced physical pain beyond what most ever will know. Pain that caused me immeasurable emotional anguish and cost me 5 of my prime years, my child-bearing years, my career-building years. Years 28 to 33. I had given up enough already, and whatever I was left with at the end of the hurricane-tornado-earthquake of Fibromyalgia, I was going to hold onto with all my might and race to the other end of the rainbow with. So take your emotionally traumatic movies and books and stories. Take those stirring and haunting and moving tales of loss and near-redemption. Take the victims and broken-hearts and tragic glimpses into the other side. Take them all. I don't want them. I have been there, and I am never going back.

Thanks for joining,
Leah