A couple weekends ago I was in town shopping for supplies for a party we were planning. It was a huge deal for me to plan this party, but this was important, so as long as the weather held out, and I was assured of help from family members, I felt I could do it. But I didn't plan on having trouble with the shopping.
A little over a year ago I started having someone drive me to town (25 miles) because sometimes I'd start hurting or get too exhausted to drive myself home. It's inconvenient, and humbling, and I have to plan around my family's schedule to go shopping, but I'm not yet ready to call a county volunteer to drive me because I don't look disabled and I can't bring myself to have an elderly person drive me around in my own car. I'm 52 years old and there may come a time, but not yet. I guess if I told the truth, I was already at that point, but it feels better with family.
My husband and I tried to make a nice time of it while we were in town together. We got something to eat, took in a Saturday night church service, and did some shopping. I had a list of things I needed which required three separate stores.
By the time we went to the second store, I knew I wasn't going to finish my list. I was dragging along, and felt like I could not take one more step, so I told my husband we needed to go home. Even sitting up in the vehicle for the 25 miles home seemed like forever with back pain, legs hurting, exhaustion, stomach starting to act up. I think for the first time I realized that the day is coming when we will have to move closer to town, if not in town.
There's no question, I love where we live. I love my Avon friends and neighbors and peaceful little town, and my big backyard. I never thought that having Fibromyalgia would determine where I live. I guess most disabled people consider how close the doctors offices are, and the nearest grocery store and post office. But I didn't really think of myself as disabled when we moved to our current home.
In my case, Fibromyalgia was not a sudden accident where everything changed at once. It takes a little piece of my life at a time, so subtle you don't notice. First of course the emphasis was on the financial because I could no longer work full time. I remember the day I realized I couldn't unpack the groceries, and had to leave the big stuff that wouldn't melt in the car till my family got home to unload it for me. My doctor recommended that I get a handicap parking ticket a while back so I could be close enough in case I had a bad spell in the stores. Then I stopped driving myself to town, and started limiting my shopping to once a week instead of once every two weeks because it was too much to get at one time.
It took a long time to accept the fact that I wasn't getting better from this thing. But it's a different matter to find new things that will get worse. I guess life is like that as we age and find our activities change. Change is always the one thing we can count on in this life, but not necessarily for our desired direction.
I still try to maintain a positive attitude and am always trying to figure out how I can make the best of a new situation. It always comes back to the will of God for me.
I am very blessed and fortunate to have family members around to help me. I would rather be the one who does the helping, but that's not the position I'm in. I also constantly battle guilt of not doing much when others around me are working up a sweat. Even as a small child I would be lying on the couch, not feeling so well, but unable to explain it, and everybody else would be doing chores. I felt extreme guilt, yet knew I could not compete with my siblings on certain days. Now that I look back, I think that's when I took up reading a lot more in my room, or spending time alone in our backwoods pasture.
How do I get rid of the guilt? I know it's not my fault, and I know I do my best, but when I am around ambitious, energetic people I want to jump in and do things too. I think it's human to feel guilt when others are helping you, and you want to be doing something, but I've yet to conquer it. All my spiritual studies tell me to be myself, and not try to be someone else, so I write it out in hopes of being able to help someone in this way.
When we are young, we think about what we want to do and who we admire. A little older and we begin to plan the steps to our goals to bring our dreams to reality. There is nothing wrong with that, but we must remember to leave room for God's plans for us. I feel like God is molding me and shaping my path to fulfill the real purpose of my existence on earth. By being who I am, I cannot be prideful of my accomplishments, but humbled in my weakness. And so in my life it is proven, in our weakness, we find God's strength.
"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel."--Gilbert Keith Chesterton
