Observations

I wrote both of these blurbs while I was in the hospital after having a nervous break down shortly after having made the decision to cut off my Grandmother's life support.

Around the Doorway

Squeaky socks on cold mint floors. Ice cream walls surrounding popscicle stick beds.

Creaking, wheezing, plastic cushions and emphysemic sofas.

Holding happy smiling drones of so much common ink.

The silent clock points the time and slowly each allows a cushion to again inhale.

With awkward silence and shuffling feet they move to politely crowd the half open door.

Names are spoken in confidential tones

and little paper cups if colored candy are returned neatly empty.

Strangers wearing badges of Authority ask difficult and painful questions in voices only half hushed.

asking for intimate answers to receive better annunciation.

Paled, water gone, empty cup returned

they go off slowly - one by one

To check the clock on stockinged feet, and the list of what unchanged thing is to follow.

Purple shadows fall like spider mascaraed eyelashes.

Casting their pink webs of light across the array of mixed emotions

their faces can not help but betray.

Lost Souls

There are so many lost souls here. Many who have meandered innocently into the darkness of unrelenting self doubt. Others who boldly stepped off into the muddle of mixed colors that seemed to offer the chance of a rainbow but, instead, they found the colors were just the blaze of so many dew beads on the steel strong threads of a greedy web. Some were thrust early from the road we were told was to be expected. And others of us had a hand come from an innocuous shadow and tear us from what could have been.

So many hearts burdened with "should of" and "if only" or wrapped so tightly in protective layers they can barely beat.

So many wraiths of the past and rattling chains of the future.

And then, in the seemingly impenetrable darkness our eyes long ago adjusted to and our minds and bodies learned to call "normal" and "right" a tiny tendril of light - of real light - the kind so many of have forgotten or had given up on as a childhood fantasy leaks through a crack we missed buttressing with our own dark matter.

With the light come voices - so foreign. Offering the terrifying prospect of hope, and even the unthinkable - understanding.

So many lost souls - so many who turn an ear to the voices, who inch closer to the light - who find they are far from lost, but perfectly found.

I've watched as some here allowed more and more of the light to fall on their souls - and it starts to radiate out through a found voice shared, eyes that have cast away their dullness and now hold a gleam full of promise, and real and honest friendships forged through the pain of truthful tears and the sweat of together working to widen the crack and let the light, slowly and painfully show us the harsh truth of how

strong, caring, giving, and deeply beautiful we really are.

Inspiration?

Why is it the desire to write seems only to come at the most inopportune moments? I'll be laying in bed at 3am and suddenly a sentence will draw itself in my mind's eye, and I long to write it down...or I'll be moved deeply by something or someone and want to post a picture of that contact in a way I can only do with words, but I can't very well say to my beautiful child or dear friend or total stranger, "Pardon me a moment, I want to write down how wonderful this is. Just hold that thought, I'll be back in a half hour!"

Usually, by the time I get to my keyboard the moment is gone, the sentence is lost among the jumble of half remembered dreams, and I'm simply uninspired. I wonder if I can muster the self discipline to write something every day during Lent? Self discipline has never been one of my strong points, and I'd like to change that. I sort of feel like I'm too old for how reactionary I am sometimes. Though, it could be that to attempt to become more disciplined I'd lose something more.

I tell the kids that life is ultimately a balance, that thinking life's unfair on the whole isn't right. So, I find myself wondering, if life really is a balance, does that mean for every gain there is a loss? To move ahead we must make sacrifices along the way? Or, perhaps, we are meant to simply let go of the "trappings" of our socially acceptable material lives and embrace a life of simplicity and love.

Today I have more questions than answers. But I also have a smile I can't quite shake, and warmth in my heart I'm reveling in.

Losing Me

I was going to start a new blog under this email address. A place to go through the mourning I'm not meant to be indulging. A place to write where it is least likely to be found. The irony of posting something to the Web as a way to keep it secret isn't lost on me.

So I sat here debating starting something new and I realized that what I wanted, in part, was to mark the distinct change that is the then and the now. What better way to do that than to continue this? The then is represented here, and now...I can add the now of things.

I was, at one time, and this is truth...smart and beautiful. I took both for granted, of course. At times I was vane and so when I lost my beauty to lackadaisy care I took it as only right. After all, I had been vane, and I knew it. Years passed and I regained my good looks, I actually stopped traffic a time or two...yes really. It was a new toy, fun to play with, and I loved it.

And then it got caught up in the confusion of what drew the anger of and lust of men I had trusted, and I pushed it away. I don't know if I pushed it away to protect myself or because my self loathing was such I felt I no longer deserved it. Regardless, I know I did, I actively pushed it away.

My intellect was different. It was the core of me, the part of my ultimate self I could turn to, lean on, and trust. It was what I had in common with my children, my husband, my mother, my father, my siblings, my friends. I didn't take pride in it, though. Sometimes I was able to do things that led me to feeling proud of myself, but not in a selfserving dark confused way...in a real way that helped me to see my path in life.

I quietly feared things that could come to any of us to take away the part of myself I held honestly dear. Alzheimers, a head injury, things beyond my control that popular culture brought across my vision. I didn't know whatever forces that cause one's own body to rebel were already at work. Whatever path Fibromyalgia needed in order to meander its way into my life was being laid brick by brick. I didn't even know what FM was.

Even when the TV started showing greyhaired women wincing when a grandchild hugged them I didn't know how right and wrong those images were. It was just another illness the drug companies were profiting from. In other words, not a part of my reality.

Now, though, I know the misconceptions of age and pain the commercials held. I don't have grey hair, I don't have grandchildren, I don't hold my wrist to my chest and look into the middle distance dramatically. All of which is to say; I certainly didn't understand how devastating FM could be until it bloomed fully in my world.

I hurt, almost constantly, so much so I dismiss nearly every pain now. Stubbing my toe no longer means a sharp OW! it means OWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!! for long minutes. I've read that the pain people with FM feel is akin to the pain of breaking a bone, I believe it. I live in fear of the everyday now, of hugs and barked shins, of people needing me and me not being there.

I wish pain were the only part of FM I had to live with, I could deal with that. But it's not. I have trouble thinking, even small things can leave me befuddled for minutes at a time...or, worse, I simply lose what I was thinking about as though it touched my brain and slid off into nothingness and ceased to exist. Sometimes whatever has slipped from me leaves a residue and something can touch that and trigger a memory and I will suddenly remember what I missed or who I left hanging.

It's awful.

I know some of the people closest to me would argue that it isn't that bad, but what would it be like if they could see all the times I cover? I couldn't do that to them. It's bad enough that they have to live with this as much as they do, I won't inflict this on them whenever I can avoid it.

I can feel myself slipping now. I'm deeply tired today, the fog is thick and the more I try to push it away or think through it the worse it gets and the more tired I get.

I miss me. I doubt I'll ever be beautiful again, my age and health make that very unlikely. I only hope someday I'll regain my ability to think, to reason, and to live without the fog.