child

by

This Too Shall Pass… I Am Blessed.

Wow… Where have I been? It’s been over two months since I have written something… and to be totally honest, it’s been over almost that long since I have even visited my blog page. Six months ago, if someone would have said I would let that let that much time pass without viewing my page, I would have just ignored them because I would have thought to myself “NO Flippin WAY!”. Well, it’s true. Now that I’m here, that old familiar feeling is back. It’s the middle of the night, I’m sitting in the dark, on the couch with just the dim light from my laptop…. except this time… same couch – different house.

Where do I start? My life, my life, my life… Lord, I know You do not shoulder more than one can bear… I. Just. Am. So. Very. Tired. I really do try not to complain, I know there are people so downtrodden and their lives really suck, I know I have no right to complain…

Here’s the deal… let me bottom line it for you… I feel like I am starring in a country song where you play it backwards to figure out everything that has been lost (I should win an award for this one!)… I am just not mending… I don’t even know how to mourn anymore. I know hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units up and down the west coast and unfortunately so do my children. What started out as a good learning situation for my children when they were young, has turned out to be a continuous cycle of “Whose Funeral Are We Going to This Month?” … Scarred for life.

Where the hell was I going with this? Oh yeah… I was bottom lining it… let me get back to it…

So! Important in a Chronic Pain Patient’s life… Truth. Honesty. Well in anyone’s life, but more so in a chronic pain person’s life because you spend your entire life explaining your pain to people who do not believe you!

Shortly after the passing of my very close friend Steve’s passing, I lost my Godfather which seemed “suddenly” to me (way too soon as I just really wanted more time!)… Very close after that… we had a traumatic experience with a dog that we were really hoping to adopt (all of my 4-legged blogger friends would totally relate to my experience but Lumpy is in a happy home now!) Well, my son entered college and turned 18 and then my husband and I found out we needed to move out of our house we had lived in for over 10 years. We had less than 2 weeks to vacate. So! I found us a house to rent and we packed up our memories and our furniture and moved to our new “home”. That was the 1st week of November… and did I tell you I was on disability and went back to work the second week of September?

For those of you that were around my blog last year… I was blessed to get out and help pick the tree this year and my husband and I trimmed it this year!

I have this horrible feeling there is a big ass dam inside my body somewhere secret stored up and it’s just going to open up one day… God help the folks that are around on that day. Poor souls… I have a huge smile on my face right now… because Lord knows, all you can do is smile when you think about the poor souls who will have to deal with my ass when I unload on them!

So, now that you are caught up with where I have been and what I have been up to since the last time I blogged….

After all I have been through…

my family still makes me laugh at least once or five or ten times a day.

My parents are still with me and I thank God every single day for this.

I am blessed.

I still have my brothers, sisters and their families and my friends and their families around me.

I am blessed.

I still have my five senses.

I am blessed.

(Ummm I did not say I HAVE sense, don’t get crazy here).

My husband still wakes up every morning and goes to sleep to me.

I am truly truly blessed.

I have fibromyalgia, ADHD and chronic depression and yes…

I am blessed.

For me, it is important to remind myself to remember what I have and to do my best to stay positive. Please be positive with me. There’s enough negativity out there…

Thanks for reading! Stay cool…. and God bless all of you and Happy Holidays!

by

When the Anger & Frustration Get The Best of You, What Do You Do? Choose Calm…

I am counting down the days… less than two weeks away until my son graduates from high school. While there is a lot to celebrate, I feel like I am seriously being tested. Mentally and physically…

This is one of those “how much can you take?” tests. All I’m saying is…. REALLY???? Right now???? First of all, I am not complaining. Okay. I’m complaining a little bit. So, as you read this, you must want to know what I am going on about. Well, I’ll tell you.

Work…. on top of Life…. on top of … Work … on top of Life… on top of … well you get it.

It is exhausting.

When the anger and the frustration get the best of you, what do you do? It’s interesting, either it’s age or all of the training I have received in the last couple years, I feel like I am a lot more calm now than I have ever been. This is another way for me to keep a flare away. If I lose my temper, I am guaranteed a flare within 24 hours. So, honestly, it’s a choice I make. How about you?

How about your surroundings? Do you notice people around you are getting mad a lot quicker? It seems to me people also get really mad at the small stuff. It’s crazy to me. I just don’t get it. It’s such a waste of energy. I guess, for me, I have so little energy to start with I see no reason to waste it on the small shit. Maybe if people were in pain, they would feel the same way. It’s an interesting way to learn such a profound lesson, but that’s how I learned! He said/she said… why do YOU care what people think of you? What is really important is what YOU think of you. Think about what makes you angry and figure out WHY. Is it worth spending the little energy you have on that anger? Or would you rather do something else with that energy… like LAUGH?

We are surrounded. There’s no doubt about it. Road rage. The daily news. TV shows. Movies. Rude people. Rude people in general. I am amazed at how rude people are these days. Rude people raising rude children…. and so on and so on…

So! Don’t stand for it. Smile. Don’t let the small shit get to you. Don’t get angry, get over it! Treat people with respect… ya hear me? Let’s use our energy for positivity!! Stand up and shout about it!

If you feel like you are about to lose it… close your eyes, breeeeeeeaaaaathe, count to ten.

If you want to scream at your boss, your husband, a rude person, your doctor …. take a deep breath, close your eyes, breeeeeeeaaaaathe, count to ten.

So… I think you get my point. The person who is going to suffer the most at the end of the day is the fibromite in the anger game.

Choose calm. Thanks for checking my blog out. Please leave a comment.

Stay cool – and chillax!!

PS. It’s funny how I always start off with one train of thought… and I always seem to end up somewhere else. Oh well, I did say I had ADHD, right? LOL!

by

I Am Enlightened… My Son is Graduating! I Can Do This, RIGHT?

Being a parent is so easy… When I was pregnant, I read all the books, I took in all the advice, I did EVERYTHING right… I was soooo prepared!! Man, I am the perfect parent!! Just call me and I will tell you all the answers. I am the leading advisor on all parenting issues.

Yeah, right!!! Ask my kids, they will tell you the real truth. My son is graduating from high school in a couple weeks and last night we had our “what are your plans for the summer conversation”. I am enlightened. I shouldn’t really call it a conversation. It was more of a one-way talk/defensive-response. I mean, I’m under no crazy assumptions here, I know I am not, let’s just say your Claire Huxtable/Mrs. Brady type of momma … but on the other hand I am also not your get-ready-for-primetime-Jerry-Springer-show momma either. I am smoothly on the side of “living-with-fibromyalgia-so-can’t-do-it-all-so-I-do-my-best-and-it’s-not-always-the-most” kind of mom. I am not sewing Halloween costumes or baking cookies or to be frank, doing laundry or making dinner or to really put it out there… cleaning the house or driving the children around. Are you still with me? Or did y’all quickly leave my post in disgust… that’s me, take me or leave me… I work full-time+, generally about 50-60 hours a week as a, let’s see my title this week is “Sales Operations Analyst”. I have two managers … I report to a Sr. Director of Global Operations and the VP of Sales at a hugemongous (yes I made that word up… and I like it!) corporation that is taking over the world one company at a time. I have worked full time since I was about 16. That’s 25+ years working full time, I’m just slightly tired sometimes. Until FMS hit me, I was definitely that type A personality. Now I am a type “a” personality… just give me the little “a”.

So, having said all that (remember… easily distracted)… I am enlightened. This is a difficult time for me. I want to stop the clock and just say “Wait a minute. I just want some you and me time to just chill. I know you are leaving, but I want to just hold on to you a little bit longer…” He, on the other hand, is ready to GO. I remember that time. I could not wait to get out of the house. I wanted to go, get out and not look back. This is a difficult conversation. Any words said between parent and child can be pretty hurtful.

Us. “We want you to get a job. We understand you are making money on your own, but we also want you to get some experience, have some structure, learn how to take direction within a management team, etc.”

Him: “ummmm, whatever. I don’t agree. I’d rather just hang out with my friends.

Us. “We know you are going out with your friends, we just need to say this so it’s been said… please make right choices about getting in the car with people who are driving under the influence”

Him: “I choose smart friends, why would they do that? I don’t appreciate you assuming they would do that.”

Us: “We just want to tell you our expectations for when you go to college, just on our mind…”

Him: “Why? Can’t you just tell me on our way when you drop me off in like three months, this makes no sense… I mean, why do you need to tell me now?”

Us: “You are graduating from school, you have a lot more time to contribute to the house, both inside and out. We would appreciate it if you would help out. These are not chores, these are things that need to be done, that we may ask you to do. You don’t have any chores that you do, so would ask that you help out a lot more until you leave.” (An alternative was given to pay instead of helping out…)

Him: “I’d rather pay than help.”

Anyway, I’m sure this is not drastically different than a lot of kids, but honestly. Selfishly, and I mean this, selfishly… life at work is so hard, why does life with him have to be so hard? He is so defensive and argumentative about everything that he disagrees with. He cannot discuss calmly, he just goes for the jugular. Aw well…

He was honest. He told us he’d rather spend his summers staying at the college than coming home… He said it’d be more fun staying at the beach with friends hangin’ out than coming home and getting nagged. Wow. That was enlightening. This kid has zero chores. I made a mistake somewhere not giving him chores and sticking to my guns on that one. Now any chore he is asked to do is an issue. On the other hand, this is also not so hard to understand. I would have felt the same way at his age. It’s is just hard to hear.

I am enlightened. Since he was a small child, he has been so stubborn. Very hard headed… to the point that we took him to counseling. I think I get it. Now. Just this moment. He is very serious about his stuff. Since he was a small child all the counselors have always said, “take away what’s important, whether that’s material or something like privacy, ie. remove the door from his room”. We have done that all his life. Now he pretty much hates us for taking that action. He KNOWs his stuff will get taken away, yet he will not give a shit. At the end of the day, he is pissed at us for all the shit we have taken away in his life. Still pissed. He remembers everything. So, why did he push it to the extreme? Why did we let things go so far? Life lessons. There is no damn “this is what you should do in this situation” reference book for each individual child.

In our children and godchild’s lifetimes, we have done our best as parents. We have made mistakes. We will continue to make mistakes. That is how life works. I know this, I accept this. It is painful for everyone involved. This is how we all grow.

I do know, my miracle child is smart, he is a genius to me, he is going to go exceedingly far in life. I am so proud of him. I love him. I trust he will make the right choices. That doesn’t mean I won’t worry, that’s just part of our DNA as parents, right?

Now begins the countdown… Lord have mercy. I can do this. He is ready. I will be too. He is a strong boy and when he walks out that door, he will be a b-b-b-….MAN! He’s been prepared. It takes a village and those he has been around the last 17 years have all given him the tools he has needed to become who he is. It’s up to him to take all of that and take the next step.

Y’all pray for me and give me your support… I already miss him!

Stay cool!