Fibromyalgia and my other half..

I have pain, it gets worse in the winter. In the winter I try not to leave my house unless I absolutely have to. Even when I have to take my kids to dance or wherever they may need to go I find myself feeling resentful from time to time. I secretly wish..awe who am I kidding, it's no secret! I wish I didn't have to leave the house for anything at all. Then I feel guilty about it. I want my kids involved in activities, having a life and I love to watch fro the sidelines, through the window or form the audience. But I always feel half involved. Half  invested, half interested, even half awake. So much of this syndrome I feel like I am only living half my life. In my head I have so much I want to do, and I remember when I did it all. But I also have the reality of what I can do now and how I feel now. I try not to feel like I got robbed, of anything, but I have. When I think about how I used to feel I get very sad, so I try not to. I try to be positive because all the studied show how important it is. I know when I force myself to walk or run or do a Warrior Dash or go to Six Flags with the kids, I will pay for it later. But I feel better for participating because for a little while, I feel like I won and Fybromyalgia lost. When I feel the guilt (and lets face it, sometimes embarrassment) for slowing down and falling behind when everyone else is racing off to the next roller coaster, I have to remind myself "at least I'm here" and I hope that's what they remember.Not that everywhere we went my back hurt, or how many things I stayed home for because I was too tired or sore, while they went alone with their dad.

So I try to join groups and pages on facebook. I even started one recently. I read everybody's blogs, and try to be involved in taking control of this thing since so much in NOT in my control. I need to stay busy and not just with housework!! It's a terrible juggling act trying to live to the fullest potential this body will let me. Between being tired, angry, a mom, a wife, feeling sad, being  in pain, depressed, and then feeling good...yikes!  Everything seems 10x's harder for me to do than everyone else, yet there are so many people who can't even do some of the things I can. So then I feel better, but guilty I feel better because someone is worse off. But is that really wrong? Don't we sometimes measure ourselves by what we can can do compared the next person? We aren't supposed to.But we do from time to time. And that's the way it is. I said it. Yeah, I am glad for myself, when I see people in so much pain and bed ridden, "at least I can run". When someone says they cant even stand for more than 15 minutes at a time I say "at least I can ride my bike". So I guess I don't feel bad that much because my heart also breaks for those people. And if I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away I would. If granted one wish it would be to wipe this out and make it no more, forget the money!

I try to pass on info on healthy eating, new pain management therapies and what ever knowledge I have. If I make one person feel like the day is not bad I will. But it would also be nice if I didn't always feel too tired to do it! I have a race coming up on Saturday. I have to try not compare myself to all the super fit people blowing past me with rockets on their feet.  I don't know if I'm ready but I will do my best and that's all I can do. That's any of us can do. 

OUR BEST