I came down the stairs as quickly as I could, my legs don't want to hold me without screaming and my arms take up the chorus when I ask them to help. Down the stairs, away from my warm loving husband, away from the little sounds of sleeping children, and the fuzzy fur ball of our Papillion at my feet...and to where the pills are, where I can take refuge in my computer, and I can cry without bothering or disturbing anyone or needing to explain.
To carry the 32oz bottle of Mocha Cappuchino Bolthouse Farms "perfectly protein" smoothy (I feel like hell, I allow myself these little pleasures) from the kitchen to the office didn't bring tears. I had a moment of being proud, then I had to open it. I considered calling...using my phone to call...my husband, but his phone is here on my desk charging, so I thought about the slog half way up the stairs so I could call to him without waking the kids, but no, he needs to sleep even though I know sleep hadn't taken him yet...let him think for a few hours that I'm sorted and he can relax.
I held it in my lap, my left arm wrapped around the cold bottle ('cold is the enemy' my mind kept reminding me) and held my breath as I tried to unscrew the cap. There was that one moment when it didn't feel like I was making any headway and I knew the pain would be worse for even trying. Fibromyalgia is nothing if not sadistic. Right when the tears came to my eyes and I could clearly feel every joint in my hand (there are a lot of them) the top gave, the safety seal gave it's reluctant sigh as the lid tore free...
And I wept. I put my drink on my desk and cradled my hand and wept. Each time my shoulders shook in that involuntary motion it sent a fresh wave of white pain and accompanying tears. I sat like that for a good 5 mintues...sobbing. A lot can go through the human mind in 5 minutes even when wracked with moments of blinding thought stopping pain.
I was proud, I did it, I opened the bottle...which lead to disgust, I'm 36 not 5 opening a bottle isn't something to be proud of... look how much this fucking disease has taken from me... alone, in pain, and proud of opening a fucking plastic bottle cap.
I wonder sometimes, is it human nature to flog ourselves?
Pain interrupted my dive into the wallowing pool and when I surfaced I felt shame. Not the kind best used as a flogging device, but the real kind that comes with perspective and realization and with that the weeping stopped. I cried for a while longer, I still have the stray tear making an appearance.
I felt shame because I could open the bottle, because I have a warm loving husband I could have woken and wouldn't have minded, because my children are healthy amazing people, because I have friends, I have a house with no fear of losing it, and I have a bottle to open.
Thank you, God, for the bottle and for the perspective. As I look out over the world in my mind's eye I am so very very blessed...so blessed I even have the option of wallowing in self pity. And that is a blessing, it could be so much worse.
I don't know what I can do to help people who are so much worse off than I am, but I'll think of something and when that thought comes I'll be grateful for it because I'll know, again, that those aren't my foot prints in the sand.
