Losing My Mind and Other Disorganization

It's confirmed. I'm totally insane.

I asked my boss if I could up my hours and work full time for a while. It would help me out with some extra cash for bills (both medical and new computer) and help out at work. We're changing benefit providers and some of the grunt work is not getting done. Things, like filing, are a total mess. I thought it would be a no-brainer. And yet, apparently not. Even though I first asked about this almost three weeks ago, I didn't find out until last Wednesday that it would be OK for a two week period with the possibility for more. I start working full-time on Monday.

I'm sure that I've made a stupid move. I should have just tried to get a holiday job at Kohl's or Border's and kept my mouth shut about it. I have a feeling that I've killed the tiny, gasping remains of what used to be my career. And ruined any possible chance to go back to my reduced schedule. It's not like I have any kind of future at my current employer. I know that. Still, doing myself in like this? What was I thinking?

I was thinking, hoping, that maybe it's possible for me to work full-time with fibromyalgia.

I blame Rosalind Joffe and Joan Friedlander who wrote a book Keep Working Girlfriend: Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease. It inspired me, darn it. It made me think that I could balance my symptoms with engaging work. And get a bigger paycheck. My first step on that path was to see if I could work a full 40 hour week.

What I failed to take into account is that I'm still not feeling all that great. I've been going to the fibro center for three months now and I don't feel that much better. I'm tired all the time, not sleeping well, and in pain. The only positive thing that I can honestly report is that I don't have sugar cravings any more. That's good but it's not relief from fibromyalgia symptoms.

My mind wants to do more. My brain keeps sending funky fibromyalgia signals to my body. I'm stuck in the middle.

*****************************************

On the upside, my concentration has been good enough that I've been able to read again.

• Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend by Laney Katz Becker. Young mothers with cancer. I cried.
• Chocolat by Joanne Harris. Chocolate, mothers, insane priests, gypsies. No tears but I felt sorry for the priest.
• Casting Spell by Barbara Bretton. A paranormal from one of my favorite writers. (Girls of Summer is on my all-time favorite list.) Sigh. I was disappointed.
• Wish You Were Here by Lani Diane Rich. Contemporary romance, a little mystery, father/daughter and mother/daughter relationships and not a paranormal element in sight. Hooray. Another favorite writer.
• The House on Tradd Street by Karen White. Yet another favorite writer moving to the dark, err, paranormal, side. This had the feel of an old time Gothic so it worked for me.

Next up, The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter. It takes place in Ann Arbor, one of my favorite places, and has this great bit. Charles, the narrator, is walking off a combination of bad dreams and insomnia -

Above me in the clear night sky, the moon, Earth's mad companion, is belting out show tunes. A Rodgers and Hart medley, this is, including "Where or When." The moon has a good baritone voice. No: someone down the block has an audio system on. Apparently I am still quite sleepy and disoriented. The moon, it seems, is not singing after all.

Don't you love that?!

***************************

Oh! The other disorganization? That'll have to wait. It's still all spread around my office floor.