Dear Daddy,

I’ve meant to write you for a couple of days but now I NEED to write you. You were always there for me when times were tough, especially when times were tough. You were the only person who really knew me because our personalities were so similar.

I know I’m just having a very bad day and they happen from time to time but this one is unusual. I feel like I’m getting beaten up by everybody


Embed from Getty Images


and I don’t know why. I don’t have you here to defend me or to want to get back at the people who are making me sad. I do know that if you could, you would although I’m not so sure you would defend mom.

No matter what she did, you defended her but her tone today, I know, you would have been the one to say “take it easy” and she would have listened. Her ordering me around like she is the commander and I’m the soldier was horrible. Something is not right. Does she think that the holiday season is only hard on her?

Losing Lola and Don and Ellen were tragic losses, believe me, I know. I went to the funerals of two of them with her. Anna went to one of them so she was always supported. There’s not much else anyone can really do. Both Emma and I call her every day, she boasts about that to her friends but sometimes  it seems I can do nothing right. At least that’s how it feels to me.

I’m not in their club of two, my sister and mom, they are so similar and our club, you and me, doesn’t exist anymore, talk about grief. Yes, I know it’s a rough time of year, with you dying on New Year’s Eve


Embed from Getty Images


and you and mom’s anniversary on New Year’s Day! Not such good timing, Dad. I  remember our last Christmas but the grief comes back in waves of sadness and anger. You should be here, playing Santa and ringing the stupid bell you always rang. If only you could come back for just one minute to ring that bell and to give me a hug that I so desperately need from you now.

Well, the day is almost over, I’m hiding in my bedroom, yeah I know, not the right solution but that’s okay, I just need a little time to myself. Your granddaughter is out having fun and your grandson will be home tomorrow. At the moment he is the one worrying because, like me, he is so intuitive and he heard my voice on the phone. I know I worry too much, oh stop laughing, but I try not to do that. I can’t help it if I read headlines and get scared. As most parents, I worry about my children.


Embed from Getty Images


You know I love you, of course you do, thank you for the signs you send me (I could use one soon, please.) Do I wish you a Merry Christmas in Heaven? It’s been so many years  you would think my grief would have mellowed but today it is raw. I don’t understand that at all.

I’m going to play some music now and settle down, I know I’ll be fine in a few minutes. You know I’ll be fine, I always remember what you and Mom said: “That beneath the mushiness, deep down, I am steel” and I know that’s true. I’ve had to be many times in my life. I love and miss you so much but I am glad you are not in pain anymore, that’s for sure. Say hi to Lore for me, quite a prank she pulled on us at her funeral. It seems like Diane and I both thought we were the sole “Augusta.” Only Lore could get away with that. Please tell her I miss her too, I really do.

All my love,

Your little mouse

PS The dog just pushed the door open, jumped up on the bed and kissed my whole face which she generally doesn’t do. She knew I was sad, I feel better already.


Embed from Getty Images


Blah Humbug

Dear Friends,

How are you? I’m fine, really.  I just want to clarify something. Sometimes I vent my feelings on this blog and people worry but please realize when I vent its my way of getting a release.Of course I have pain sometimes but I live with that and work through it. I don’t suffer 24/7. I promise. Trust me, if I did, you would hear me scream at your houses.

You can always ask me any question. My way of getting RID of negative feelings or pain is working through them and writing about them, I don’t want anyone to be concerned. If you feel worried, ask me any question.

Also, remember I’m a bit sneaky. Many times I weave fiction and non fiction together, so you may not know who is writing what. As I say in my blurb: “There’s a little fiction in non-fiction and a little non-fiction in fiction, you decide.”

So, today I’m not depressed, physically I feel fine. I don’t hurt everywhere, my kidneys are hanging in there and my anxiety level is low. I saw the sunshine for a brief amount of  time, for me that is always good! The cold seemed less cold in my kind of new green jacket that was handed down from my sister to me. I love it!  It’s a beautiful shade of green/purple that shimmers, hard to describe, I know.

I’m not happy or sad, not melancholy or enthusiastic. I’m just plain blah. (I am amusing myself, as my children know I do, very often, by the witty title of this blog) and it is making me laugh.)

I wonder if my mood is the same for me every year and I turn to my husband and ask. “Pretty


Embed from Getty Images


much” he says because he knows that this is a rough time of year for me. Why do I forget this every single year? Do I just block it?

My dad died on New Year’s Eve so these holidays hold pain, genuine heartbreak, along with joy. My children are not children anymore, they are grown-ups with lives of their own, they sleep and eat at our house during college breaks, but they don’t need us like they did when they were young. I miss (and don’t miss) the very young years, the affection, how they loved us and needed us and how we were their world.


Embed from Getty Images


I am also incredibly PROUD of the independent young woman and man they have become. Truly, I am beyond proud of my two kids, “we do good kids” my husband and I say to each other a couple of times a year. We do a lot of wrong things and have MANY faults but our children are good people, people the world will be happy to have.

We are not young anymore or really old.  We’re not grandmas or grandpa’s yet (sometime, I hope) nor are we the current generation. We are the almost but not retiring boomers. We can’t retire, we don’t have enough money. We need to take care of our living parent (s) and are still responsible for our not yet independent adult children.

I don’t feel anything really strongly, certainly nothing dramatic.This is not a bad thing at all. It’s like a vacation from the drama that goes on in my life. I think I will try to make this last as long as possible. Blah: The New Vacation, A Cheap And Safe Alternative To Flying. You Don’t Have To Leave Your Home, Or Better Yet, Your Armchair.

Rejoice, Blah is the new Awesome.

Who could ask for more?

 WISHING ALL MY READERS AND FRIENDS A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SEASON AND A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!!! (Hey, it’s ME, did you really think I would put a bottle of bubbly instead of dessert?)

 

I am sick, I am not sick, I am

Pain #TP637 (Photo credit: ConnectIrmeli)

I am not sick. I am. I am sick if I feel pain, pain hurts. Sick is pain, not bumping up against walls and tremors. So, I am not sick. Not now. Not yet. You did hear me, right? I am not sick. What happens when invisible illness become visible? When a pink cane accompanies me everywhere? I am not invisible anymore. People see me and give it a thought, “oh, there’s something wrong with HER, I wonder what it is.”

I think the same thing, flatly, without terror, at least today. What IS wrong with me. I have shut down for the most part and if I could stay in bed in my white-flowered pajamas, thin and comfortable, I would do that all day and night. I can’t. My kids are home today for a visit and as most parents know, I would do anything not to scare them or put them through any unnecessary concern.

I am unbalanced, imbalanced. I cannot walk a straight line. My neurologist was cavalier the first time he saw this, in fact he ignored it. Why would he ignore something as strange as that? Maybe because he ran over his 8 minute limit.  I don’t like him. I don’t like a doctor who does not acknowledge emotion, who pretends it is not there. I need to switch. He didn’t want to give me this second MRI but my” huggable rheumatologist” insisted. He is a doctor I respect. A person that you can be proud to call your doctor.

I need a favor, I have asked a friend and she can’t do it. I have asked another friend and I haven’t heard back. I hate asking for favors. Do I ask again or just call a cab? I’m too tired to even make this decision. My room is disgustingly disorganized and I don’t have the energy to clean it but I will try for ten minutes. There is a banana bread in the oven baking for my son for his 24 hour visit, I would have crawled to make that for him, I had to lean on counters but I did it. I just hope I don’t burn it since I am lying down upstairs.

I’m getting very tired. Tired of tests, tired of illnesses, tired of sickness upon sickness piling up on me. This blog is the friend I can always talk to. I do not tell my mother half of what is going on because I don’t want her to worry. Here, I can say anything, I am not seeking pity, just a few minutes of peace of mind. It generally doesn’t work but I give it a try. I have nothing to lose. I cannot hide because I am here, just because I don’t complain does not mean I don’t hurt.

photograph credit to the noted photographer above.

no rights.

Hope, Lost

fibromyalgia awareness (Photo credit: veganjoy)

I am feeling funky today. Not funky ha ha, funky bad, I get those days from time to time. Fibromyalgia and chronic pain are to blame. There are days when I have a really good attitude about my chronic pain disease, Fibromyalgia and I say things to myself like “it’s not life-threatening” to keep me sane and balanced and aware, even grateful. Then there are nights like tonight where my face crinkles in uneasy frowns and my smile has disappeared as if I have two very different personalities. This “me” is not happy, and this “me” is angry, pissed off and ready to rumble.

Tonight is a night when many of my Fibromyalgia on-line friends/sisters in solidarity, are on-line, I read their blogs, they read mine.  There seems to be a lull in energy for all of us, a low in satisfaction, an overall feeling of just wanting to give up and an off the wall chart on pain levels. We have had enough, all of us. Yes, we know we have the illness, yes we will never get rid of it, yes it hurts and clouds our minds so much that our children look at us as if we have dementia. It’s called Fibro Fog.

I’ve never been overly concerned with my age, 55, but I am disappointed and disgusted in my physical limitations. Between low blood pressure, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and Fibromyalgia, I don’t have a lot of energy. Other times, I have balance issues, always I have pain. At some point in the day or night, pain wakes me up in the cramping of my arms, in the battlefield of my legs. My husband passes by me and by accident his soft, cotton shirt touches one of my tender points and I scream out in pain. He didn’t do anything wrong but just the touch of the fabric was excruciatingly painful. It’s not fair and yes, I am whining tonight.

I’m tired and cranky and cranky some more. Oh, p.s. IT’S NOT IN OUR HEADS!

My jaw hurts from TMJ, my stomach hurts from IBS, my hair falls out and I can’t get a good night’s sleep which is imperative to my health. I can’t win, we can’t win. I feel  impatient and eventually I will settle down but now I just want to be angry at how my body has failed me. You know it’s true.

No, I don’t want platitudes, I just want to vent and say that I know it could be much worse but for now, it isn’t exactly like a walk in the park. I have a puppy, she needs to be walked, she needs to run but I can’t run with her. I take her on short walks when I can and sometimes I just throw her a toy, from my lying down position on the couch. It isn’t much but it is something. Still, I feel like a bad puppy mommy.

I had to have a brain/spine MRI because my imbalance was so severe that I fell flat on my face and knees outside with nothing to trip me. I’m seeing my Rheumatologist but I KNOW he doesn’t have the answer. He believes me, he cares, he tries but I know he can only do so much. Part of me wants to throw away the medicine I am taking (Savella) and see how bad it is without it. On the other hand, I’m scared to do that, I’m a little better than I was originally. Just not good enough.

Why Can’t We Just Say “Life Sucks?”

When someone asks me how I am doing I usually say” okay.” ” Good” works too in a pinch, “doing well is always a favorite”; a real crowd pleaser. I ‘ve tried the honest, or blank, neutral face and the politely depressed pout too but that just turned people away. Some people just don’t REALLY want to know how you are simply because they don’t care or they have their own stuff to deal with. I  don’t want to confront or ambush innocent people nor do I want pity (ok, I admit sometimes I would like a little pity).

When someone asks me how I really am I refrain from saying  “life sucks,” even though at the moment (or for the last two years) it has. Why?  Is it just not polite enough? Is there some filter we need to uphold appearances even when life is giving us a beating? Do people not want to hear the truth? If someone told me that their life sucked I would be more than willing to listen, to advise, if appropriate, to help them feel better.

There’s: Unemployment. Health and Safety problems. The Economy. The BP Oil Spill. Cancer. AIDS. All illnesses. Death, Dying and Despair. The Environment, the World at large, Fighting, and Abuse. There’s also Terrorism, Uncertainty, Crime, and Fear. In addition there are the “ism’s” : Racism, Sexism, “Religiousism” and” Ageism”. I know we can’t dwell on these things because we would never again want to leave the “relative” safety of our homes but once in a while why can’t we acknowledge that we’ve gotten a raw deal, the short end of the stick, even the much wanted last piece of milk chocolate that someone just popped into their mouths with a  greedy, toothy, lopsided grin.

I know it’s not polite to use the “S— word but it feels so appropriate. Life stinks doesn’t pack a punch. “Life is life” sounds too esoteric. “Life is” sounds like a Philosophy 101 class. Maybe that’s why I have this blog to vent because it isn’t appropriate to tell the truth, or to tell the truth the way I want to. Life can be difficult at times. Let’s leave it at that.