bluelakelady

Often I read here of the deep feelings some of you have about losing your "old" way of life. I hear words such as, "I feel like I have been robbed of my life."
Sometimes I hear, "I don't want to live my life if this is what it will be like.", and saddest of all, "My spouse is going to leave me". There are so many changes going on in your lives you feel swamped by the waves of emotion and pain. I hear the words of broken hearts, confused minds, tormented bodies, crying out for understanding, compassion and patience. I see the words of those cries gone unheeded.
Quietly I witness your words. In my minds eye I see you lying in your bed, puttering about your house doing the chores, walking on the beach, strolling thru the Spanish moss dangling from branches bare with winter, walking the streets of big cities and tiny towns. Within each of you I sense a ray of hope. Hope that your life will somehow find balance. Hope that peace is just around that next corner. Hope that an answer will be found and you will be free of this illness within your body.
Hope is a good thing. It will not, however, take care of today. Hope is based on an unseen tomorrow, not today. Today requires determination and guts. In order to really live today you have to embrace today. No matter how that day feels.
Our culture says pain is a bad thing and must be chased away. Our culture says we must feel good all the time. Our culture says we have a pill to fix anything that is wrong with you. I for one think our culture is full of compost. Pain is a part of life. So is feeling good. And feeling bad and crying and mourning and skipping with joy. It's all life.
How many of you have explored the things you can do now? What new talents are developing within you? It's happening you know. Right now as you read this your body is evolving, adapting and learning. New aspects of ability are coming to the forefront. I never knew I could paint until I got so bored I just had to do something! I was going nuts with all that time and no ability to do the old things I used to.
One day I just sat my butt down and gave myself a lecture. I chose the voice of my father to listen to. "Are you just going to sit here and watch yourself waste away? Isn't there anything you can think of that you would like to learn? You have all this time and you walk around wishing for something to do, so think of something? Don't you remember how much you loved to try new things? Can you possibly have forgotten who you are in all of this? You can do anything you set your mind to. If you could rebel with as much flair as you did you can use that determination to find new purpose. Rebel against that part of you that would succumb."
I am now old enough to listen to my fathers voice. Even tho he died almost 30 years ago I knew what his words would be. I decided to be a gardener first. I did not know the first thing about gardening, well maybe the first, seed and water and sun, but how much sun and how much water and are those tiny seeds really going to grow that big plant? The first year I went crazy buying seed packets, popping them in little plastic containers filled with soil and watering them every day. I kept them by the wood stove at night and in the sunniest windows during the day. Most of the seeds came up, some were a total bust.
Gently I planted the little plants. I had these plants I thought were sage. I created this tall mound to grow them on. Then one day a neighbor who really is a gardener came by. When I showed him my sage mound he smiled and said those look like broccoli to me. Then he went on to tell me broccoli would not grow in this climate. I was not deterred. I told him I planned to be the first person to have a broccoli mound that produced. I was right. We had broccoli all summer. Instead of ripping them out and taking another persons word I chose to see for myself. It has been 7 years since the broccoli lesson. I am a new me now. Filled with the old determination, imagination and a new sense of love for life as it is.
These days I know what I am doing in the garden, mostly. It was thru gardening that I discovered I could paint too. I grew bird house gourds one year. I wanted to see if painting would be fun and gourds sounded like an interesting way to start. My first works are done in 4 colors of paint. Now I see at least 50 bottles of paint, many brushes, sponges, and, well, stuff for painting. And I have graduated to painting flat surfaces as well. My brother works in a cabinet shop. He and his co-workers keep their eye out for waste wood I might like to paint on. I like the idea of recycling the waste wood into art.
My painting is abstract and impressionistic. I do not try to recreate reality. I like the fun of creating images that do not exist and leave much for the imagination to fill in.
We all have a choice to make when our perfect bodies are suddenly not so perfect anymore. At least according to our "old standard" of perfect. The way I see it my body did not abandon me. I almost abandoned it. I almost lost my will, my determination, my desire, my joy, in thinking that I was useless to myself or anyone else being "sick".
If you had a life before FMS, you still do. Your life is what you make of it.
Like my fathers voice said within me that day, "Are you going to just lie there feeling sorry for yourself? You have done that most of your life. Look where it has gotten you? Get out of that bed and get a life!" Thanks dad. As usual you are right. I love my life now. I love having FMS. For the first time my head is on straight and the view is clear blue! The sun comes out and I am here to see it. The stars shine and I am here to count them. The winds whip and I feel the power they infuse me with. The rain falls and I grow. Snow softly floats to earth and I am grounded in peace and quiet.
Someone once said here that I ought to have my own thread. This is my thread to all of you. Come to my garden filled with color and help yourself to some blossoms of patience, dance on my ground cover rippling in purples and greens and wiggle your toes in the love that supports your very being. Fill your heart with sunshine and your mind with determination.
Yes, I am unique. So are you!
Peace,
bluelakelady