Silver

I keep feeling as though I stumble upon silver linings.

- Not having health insurance means I didn't have to go through the plethora of testing usually done on people before giving the FM diagnosis.

- I spent 3 weeks thinking I might have MS, so when I was told it was FM it felt like a huge weight had been taken off of my shoulders.

- Coming off of the Zoloft has made me much more aware of how desperate our situation is, which means I can really be a partner to my husband and give him the support he needs to get through this.

- My husband being unemployed during the last few weeks has meant I could escape the family whenever I needed to while I went through the emotional rollercoaster of changing mind altering medications.

There are more, but some things don't need to be written down. It's odd to have so much difficulty in our lives, but to be able to see how truly blessed we are at the same time. There is something in our society that balks against giving thanks for the little things when the larger picture seems so bleak. I'm starting to learn that our society is broken. It's sad, really. The more poor you are in our country the more fines you seem to rack up. Employers are starting to check people's credit before hiring, even though those in the most need of work are often going to have the worst credit. Oh, and I could go on about the credit reporting companies and their inaccuracies for ages!

Really, how can we have gone from trusting the man sitting across from us to trusting a conflicting bunch of numbers?

For now I am grateful for the simplicity my life is becoming. Being grateful for a dozen eggs is a far cry from the odd sense of entitlement I bandied about as I spent my Mom's Weekends Off in a 5 star hotel. I suppose I could flog myself for the waste that was, but there isn't any point in doing so. Instead I'll choose to learn from my mistakes whenever I can to try not to let the past resurface in the future.

Ah, and another bit of silver occurs to me :)

I am living in nearly constant pain, which keeps me very grounded in the moment. I've spent a long time trying to figure out how to live in the present, I suppose I am getting my training in how to do so now.

Coming Out of the Fog

Welcome to the world of FM. Ah, no, not a new radio station...this is Fibromyalgia, apparently my new life long friend, or is it "frenemy"?

Which ever, according to my wonderful doctor and the fancy folk he sent me to it is my diagnosis. FM will be sharing my nearly 36 year old body with a newly found companion named Hypothyroidism and my old buddies PTSD and Sciatica. It seems that PTSD might have been the one to invite FM to the party without consulting me. Which, I'd like to mention, is terribly rude....ahhh, but then, when has PTSD ever really listened to me? It does as it likes, really, like a spoiled rebellious child with direct access to my adrenal gland. But I digress, and regress a bit just to spice things up.

I've come to find I rather like Hypothyroidism. I had blown up like a balloon with infinite access to air in recent months, and my skin (a matter of silken pride even in the darkest of my days) had started to crinkle and flake in the most unfeminine manor. It seems that was all just Hypothyroidism trying to get attention. Now, I greet it every morning with a tiny tablet and a glass of water. In the first week of getting the little bit of attention it needed is settled down and the balloon has lost nearly 12 pounds of air so far and my silken point of pride has recaptured my husband's attentions.

FM and I are still feeling each other out. I am thrilled that it has allowed me to call it quits with PTSD's major controller, Zoloft. Honestly, after seven years it was time to recognize that it just wasn't going to work between us. PTSD has taken the break up rather personally and thrown a few notable fits, but nothing it can't be mostly coxed down from with a bit of Klonopin or the occasional inadvisable Ale or Lager. Once or twice PTSD has needed a good long cry or a bit of time to just be totally unreasonable in the safety of my husband's arms. I don't think PTSD realized it was going to cause Zoloft and I to split when it helped FM in, but so it goes, and we'll all grow and move on.

In truth I'm a bit hopeful that PTSD will skip the growing bit and just take to the moving on part. We've been together a long time, and FM is going to take a lot of my attention now. Perhaps, as I enter the last three days of Zoloft's half-life in my body, PTSD and I can reach a truce of our own without Zoloft trying to be there as the ever present intermediary. Well, one can hope.

Ah, there I said it...or, rather typed it, the magic word: Hope. I try not to think of it too often, the glimmer of light around the dark cloud or at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Hope. What a powerful word...powerful enough to elect a president, to raise the fists of the oppressed against their oppressors, and to help people of all colors creeds and nations battle their own inner demons.

If God is Love, what is Hope? Is it a promise of God in our lives? Is it the song in our hearts that brings that last bit of strength to survive...to live...to come out of darkness of the fog?

Blessings

Tonight he looked at me, brown eyes bright, his lips hinting at a gentle smile. I smiled back, though I lowered my eyes. It was almost too much to look up into his face, knowing how he saw me. My hair disheveled, a great lump of blue paint dead in the center causing it to stand up in a do only previously imagined by overly serious young European designers and Dr. Seuss. No make-up to hide the increasingly noticeable blemish on my chin, and my unshaven legs just visible as my bathrobe covered my lap where my legs were neatly tucked up. I sneezed, hugging the box of tissues to me and giving an almost comedic groan and glances up at him again. He stood there, his expression only changed by a more visible smile.

Lightly hooking his fingers under my chin, he prevented me from looking away. I smiled back, what else could I do? "You are so beautiful" he says, and means it. My body responds with the sudden need to loudly blow my nose, which I try to do as demurely as possible...to no avail. I roll my eyes in the universal "you're nuts or completely full of it" look, and turn back to my computer screen. His light touch on the blue spot on my hair and I hear him laugh quietly. "You are, you know" I ignore him. He leans over the back of my chair and hugs me, kisses my neck, whispers tender sweet words in my ear and I try not to lose my resolve to be stubborn in my sense of reality.

I look to him again, a trained bemused look that I know he knows well and his eyes meet mine. For the millionth time I'm reminded of describing him to a friend after we first met and telling her his eyes were the most amazing blue. They aren't they are deep brown flecked with gold and hints of green around the pupils, but back then I couldn't imagine brown eyes that could hold me motionless, like they do now. I give up, give in, drop the barrier I was weaving with my own doubts, internal tapes, and sense of what I really look like and just look to him.

He leans down and kisses me sweetly and again whispers that I am beautiful, and I tell him I love him though, as they so often do, the words seem inadequate to express everything I feel for him.

Later, children settled, we go to bed. Curled in our accustomed spots within each other, feet tangled together loosely as we do our version of 'spooning'. We discuss the children, go over little moments we've each had with them over the day and laugh wonderfully together at the wonder of children. We decide to keep them home one more day, they still have fevers, though it's clear they are getting better. We talk about house work, hobbies, politics, the dogs, money...laughing often at silly moments or pie-in-the-sky thoughts. My back to him, I can hear him fading, the occasional smart ass comment sending me into almost startled laughter all over again. And then, his breathing slows and his weight against me increases and I know he has fallen asleep with a smile playing on his lips.

I lay there, our fingers laced together on my stomach, and wonder at the beauty that is my marriage and give thanks to God for the millionth time for the blessing that is my husband. My mind drifts near sleep, fantasies of little things I could do to make him happy flicker by until I find I am paying more and more attention to them and I am no longer edging on sleep. Mildly frustrated I lay there and listen to him breathe, feeling each exhale on the back of my neck. I wonder if he's getting enough air and assume he must be.

Slowly my fantasies of finding a more equal place in this partnership lead to the insomnia driven whispers of self-doubt and eventually to my own mental floggings. Unable to still the nagging feeling of being somehow unworthy of this beautiful man, this gift from God in my life, I disentangle myself, kissing his fingers lightly as I slip from the bed and find myself here, up again. He said he would wait for me right there so I could just slip back into what we call "my spot", and I think enough time has passed. My eyes are closing and my hands have that odd dull ache that is only soothed by touching him. It must be time to go back to bed, and again, give thanks for what is truly a Blessing.

The Disney Infection

My dream life and my waking life seem determined to be at odds with one another. Dreams that weave webs holding me in deep sleep reveling in their silken embrace seem tainted and full of thorns when I wake.

Even thinking back on them some part of my mind is soothed, it croons, my pulse quickens while the rest of me recoils in something near disgust. My cheeks flush, my heart races and I feel like I need to put my brain in the shower.

All of it from dreams that would, at most, be rated R and more likely PG13. Somehow I have become infected with Disney script writers in my subconscious. Short of the obligatory Disney need for parental death, my dreams could all easily be edited to fit into Anastasia or Beauty and the Beast (I'm the beast, btw). If we were going to keep the R rating, though, I suppose it gets a bit more interesting, but it's still horribly formulaic.

It's almost always Him in them. Mr. Accepting of all of my flaws, ready to love me regardless. He's quiet and contemplative, that nerd thing that so many intelligent women swoon over. A professorial countenance, with the awkwardness of a gangly young man, mixed with the promising glint of mischief in his eye. In short: smart, vulnerable, understanding, and fun.

Hmm, who should we cast for this part? A younger Gary Oldman, possibly? And what about my part, what actress should get my role. It's a dream, after all, so how about a chubby going on fat Jody Foster.

Ok, good, we have our two main characters. Let's put them on a cruise ship, each with an inattiventive significant other. Neither of them are married, but, perhaps not far from it.

The scene: A fairly nice bar, dark wood, a couple of portholes on the far side of the room that really look out on one of the decks. The room is nearly empty, post the dinner crowed and pre the night time clientel. A bored looking waitress folds napkins at a table and talks to the bartender who's slicing limes at the far end of the bar. The lights are dim, and there's a jazz ensemble taking their time setting up on the small stage.

She sits at the bar doodling on a napkin, a large mixed drink halfway gone near at hand. She's wearing a full length black skirt, a black raw silk tailored shirt open over a delicate lacy cream top with a scooped neck. Jewels glint from her left hand and right wrist. She is terribly over dressed and clearly a sad case.

He comes in wearing black pressed suit slacks, a crisp white shirt with wrinkles pressed into the back, the top button undone and his tie loosely knotted three buttons below it. He puts his dinner jacket over the back of the barstool and orders a beer.

And so they meet, and cheer each other up with a few shared smiles and noncommittal chit chat. It isn't anything of note, but there's a small spark and inwardly chastising herself for again noticing how the corer of the right side of his mouth goes up a moment before he smiles, how his hands look as he holds his beer...she finishes her drink and leaves.

LoL Catz Dream

I am in a box, typing. The box is on a bed in a room I'm not familiar with.

I can see over his shoulder as we chat in IMs. I type to him about how odd my new vantage point is. In a moment of optimism, friendship, amusement I come out of the box and stand over him and say, "See, odd how close I am, isn't it?". He goes silent and I know I've screwed up. Damn it. I lamely try to joke, but his fingers are still on his keyboard.

I retreat, heartsick, back to my box. The four top flaps lay open. I change the background I'm sitting on, trying to find something to match my mood...something to ease that horrible feeling of having over stepped, having embarrassed myself and risked a friendship I thought was closer than it apparently was.

Eventually I give up and lay on my stomach, knees bent and ankles crossed behind me, on the bare cardboard. I dig up a pen, a blue ballpoint, and sooth myself with the feel of sliding the along the forgiving bottom of the box. A face starts to emerge as I sketch, nothing noteworthy, the kind of doodle so many envelope backs have seen before.

I can hear typing, he's moving again, I lay my head on my arm and watch the pen glide over the brown fur of the cardboard. I half hope for the ping that will mean he's typing to me, that this moment of awkwardness is passed. I listen to the tippity tap of finger pads on plastic letters and sigh to my core. Glancing over to the screen I wonder if I should log out, go do something else.

The room grows quiet, the incandesant overhead light goes out, and with a sinking heart I start to muster myself to look at the screen where I know I will now see his empty chair and dark monitor as my desktop. Closing my eyes in preperation to sitting up I feel a shadow cross over the top of the box.

I hold my breath, the feel of the shadow comes back, cast over me in the twilight of the room. Hesitant fingers touch my hair, I stumble over words as I whisper an apology. He asks what I'm drawing, I write "nothing" under the woman's face and he says he likes it.

I laugh tentitively, still feeling for where we stand. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wish I'd washed my hair before logging in, or changed out of my pajamas. I wonder what I would see if I were to turn and look into his face. What will his eyes hold? Curiosity over comes resurvation and I look up into familiar brown eyes.

It's quiet, he leans over the box, he's taller than I remember. One arm, the one that reached into my space...that touched my hair, rests on the lip of the box. I apologize again, he shakes his head and smiles, lips closed. It doesn't seem to reach his eyes, but that's ok, there's something else there to see. I offer a small smile, a truce. It's accepted with a look, he touches the arc my cheek with his thumb. A decision slowly forms behind his eyes...he bends over the lip of the box and I raise my head and he kisses me. It's not passionate, but it isn't chaste and I can see more waiting in his gaze. I lift my head up to him in acceptance of whatever is next.

Then quietly he whispers with a grin, "friendship fail"

Not Ever Again

I will not be bound.

You can not tie my hands just because you feel secure when your own are securely twisted behind your back.

I will not go backwards in my life. I will not let the insanity that has surrounded me suck me back into its greedy vortex.

I will not accept responsibility for someone else's choice, mistakes, or perversions. I will not be accountable to anyone on this Earth for what others do. And I will not say "I have brought this upon myself" or feel guilt when another being chooses to inflict themselves upon me.

I will not be anyone's whipping boy or stand idly by while a wrong is being committed to another.

I will live a life devout to my morals, to my truths...but I will not brandish them before others as better.

I will let go of you rather than walk a path along with you that I know will damage me. But I will wait for you where we parted and if you need me, I will be there.

There are places in this life only God can walk with you, but you are never alone, nor am I. Not only is He there forever and always, but if we take the time to look outside of ourselves we will see the shadows of so many others who also walk a narrow path of thorns. How powerful would all of those souls be if they looked up and saw one another...if they linked arms, and leaning on one another rose up above their narrow paths into something so much greater.

We are all capable of great good and great evil, but it is our choice which one we work toward. Each action is our own, our responsibility, and if we hurt another with that action then it is to us to try and mend the wound. To turn callously and selfishly aside from someone your deeds or words have harmed is to turn toward a much darker path.

I think, for those who choose selfishness the world must be very small and cramped. I see them walking hunched over through a tunnel of brambles, hugging themselves, with eyes full of hate for all that surrounds them. Though, it isn't the brambles fault that they have thorns and if the hateful soul were only to walk more slowly, and move the branches with more care they would find the sky above them.

I am not suggesting I am always able to see the sky or that I have not walked that narrow lonely path of thorns, but I will not let you take me there. Not ever again.

To Whom it May Concern:

TMI