It's always interesting to go back and read what I've written in past blogs or journals. Sometimes your memory plays tricks on you and your perspective has shifted. This is the case with this blog. I'd only written two entries and if truth be told, I would have deleted everything before I read it and just started over. However, once I started reading I was glad I didn't do that. Ironically, a lot of my goals are similar to what they were in January. Improving myself, body, mind, and soul. Lessening the shame I feel for falling short of my goals.
Lately I've been feeling a need to write down what is happening in my life each day. I don't know why that is, but it is. Today—Thursday—just sucked. I haven't been able to sleep at night very well. Last night it was close to four before I fell asleep. I woke around 11:30, and knew immediately I needed to get up and start getting ready. I was supposed to go to my mom's office and help her, then go to an interview. As I was lying there considering these things, I fell back asleep and woke to my dad telling me my mom was on her way to get me.
From this point on, I'm going to call my mom Nora. No particular reason other than anonymity. Nora has high expectations of everyone around her. Despite the fact that I have been chronically ill for over three years, the expectation is still very high for me. I think Nora has a hard time accepting the fact that I may never heal completely from fibromyalgia. In fact, most patients grow continually worse over time. I feel blessed that I am able most days to walk my dog, cook dinner, spend time with my children, etc. But Nora is convinced that I isolate myself and need to spend more family time together. She also thinks I sleep too much (fatigue and sleep disorders are part of fibromyalgia) and that I need to find a job. Since I was having so much trouble finding a job I could keep with my symptoms, Nora decided I should work for HER on Thursday afternoons. Three hours on Thursdays, and let me tell you, it's NOT something I look forward to. I love my mother with my whole heart and I believe she thinks she is doing what is best for me. However, she and I disagree quite a bit on what is best for me.
At any rate, I ended up taking Nora back to her office and coming home to shower and prepare for my interview. Except there ended up not being one. The genius who had asked me to interview ended up never sending me an address, despite my emails back asking for one. So what's a girl to do?
I slept.
Now this is where Nora (and probably most people) do not understand me. I do not LIKE to sleep this much. I don't lie on my bed and go, "Thank you God for the extra time to sleep today!" No. I go, "What could I do to fight off this drowsiness?" It's a constant battle and when I cave in, I feel like fibromyalgia is beating me. It's an incredibly frustrating, angry feeling. I finally woke up, forced myself to shower, and eventually went to pick up Nora, who wasn't in the greatest mood herself. I don't know if Nora was just tired or irritated with me or what. I have the kind of personality that I tend to blame myself if things are not going right, and so Nora's mood automatically fell into the category of "My Failures Today". The ironic bit is Nora could have been tired, or she could have been mad at me, or she could have had a sesame seed in her teeth. I just blame myself.
We got home and after a few minutes of checking on my daughter and everything that was going on, I decided to check my email, and I got a true shock. Plain as day, there was an email sitting there from an old friend. From Marvin.
I guess I should explain how I know Marvin. Last summer I was having an extremely rough time with a new job and problems with my son Lance. I put an ad out looking for a friend and Marvin answered it. We hit it off well and enjoyed chatting online. I was a homebody but Marvin liked going out, and he invited me out frequently. We eventually fell into a pattern of going to lunch together once a week or so for several weeks. Over time though, I noticed fewer and fewer emails from him until eventually he just disappeared altogether. That was painful. Shortly afterward I quit my job, as I was insanely sick. Two months later, Lance was hospitalized for psychiatric illness. It was a difficult summer/fall.
So here's this new email from Marvin, reintroducing himself (like I would have forgotten) and apologizing for dropping off the face of the earth. Asking me to text him if I can or care to. And he's included a picture of himself—the same picture he sent in the very first email he sent me.
Yes, I remember you. You really think I would forget? If it weren't for lunch with him I probably would have quit that job a lot earlier. That may or may not have been a good thing.
And yes, I want to contact him again. I know the saying—trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me. So I don't know if I'm inviting trouble or not. I know at the time he was having a lot going on with an ex-wife and his children. And as a mom of two kids who have special needs, I totally get the "kids come first" thing. Mine always have and always will. So at some point I'll text him and see what's up. I always liked him. He was a nice guy....before he vanished, anyway.
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