Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone peace for the Christmas season and beyond.

Wildlife Outside My Window

Check out this little guy. He was in the tree outside my window this morning. It was about 10 degrees with blowing snow. He seems to be enjoying his breakfast but the poor little thing had to be freezing.

By the way, the picture is courtesy of my new Nikon Coolpix camera which I got for a steal at Target - 8.1 megapixal and, as you can see, zoom.

Also, thanks to M, my brother, I figured out how to get this close-up without reading the manual. Life is good.

Fibromyalgia and What I Learned

When I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I tried to tell myself that many other people were much worse off than me. This is undoubtedly true. As bad as my worst flare-ups would get, I knew that eventually I'd feel at least a little better. I learned that fibromyalgia is not degenerative. It can be debilitating but it wasn't going to kill me. So, I told myself to suck it up and get on with life.

That worked for me ... uh, not at all. I never fully admitted that my life had to change. I threw myself into the vicious cycle of doing too much, having a flare-up, crashing, recovering, doing too much, and so on and so on.

I was depressed, in pain and exhausted all the time. I finally broke. I took advantage of my company's employee assistance program and made an appointment with a therapist. She told me something that changed my perspective. She said that it didn't matter that other people were worse off than me. She said that there would always be someone whose situation was worse. That didn't mean that I had to discount what was happening to me. It didn't mean that I couldn't feel bad about what was happening to me.

I got permission to feel sad and angry and afraid about the changes in my life. Sometimes I still feel sad and angry and afraid. But you know what? I don't feel guilty about it. I learned that masking my feelings about my illness is not productive. I learned that I have a right to mourn the life I lost. When those lessons sunk in, I started to see that I could make a new life for myself. I could see myself living a good life even though I have a chronic illness.

Happy Anniversary to Me

The other day I realized that I missed an important anniversary. It's been nine years since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I can't remember the exact date of the diagnosis because between perimenopause and fibro, I'm lucky I can remember my own name, but I do know it was in the fall of 1999. In honor of the past nine years, I thought I'd spend the next couple of entries talking about:

1. things I've learned since being diagnosed
2. things I haven't learned
3. things I think I've learned but apparently have not based on my actions
4. things I hope I learn and act on going forward

If I have any anniversary wishes for myself, I'd wish that I would acknowledge that I've done my best dealing with this illness for the past nine years and, more importantly, that I live my upcoming years with joy, love and wisdom no matter what health challenges I might face.

I Figure It Out

I finally figured out what's wrong with my life.

Today, I got two emails. One said that said that if I forwarded the message, I would get good luck. The other said that if I didn't forward the message, my life would be awful for days to come.

After I deleted the messages, I realized that I never forward any messages like that. I haven't forwarded any of them for years. No wonder I never have any luck! No wonder I have awful days!

I apologize to my friends and family (and anyone dumb enough to give me his or her email address). I am going to fill your inbox until good luck comes my way and I have no bad days.