Spring Thaw and Coming Out Of Hibernation

It's been a rough winter. A very rough winter.

I have kept discussion of my illness, fibromyagia, off this blog. My thinking was that this was a blog about my family. About the things that we do together and a record of growth and change, not about my illness. The result of this though has been extended periods of inactivity on the blog because my illness took a starring role in life for everyone. It is a part of my family no matter how much I want it not to be. It is the reason why we don't do many things that I would otherwise find "blog worthy". Days meld into weeks and weeks into months sometimes when I am feeling very bad. It is hard to be upbeat and positive when feeling so beaten down. By keeping my illness off of this blog I have forced myself into a false pretense of everything being wonderful, and short changing myself on the opportunity to write about life, which does go on even in the midst of my struggle.

This winter saw the one year mark of my acceptance of the extent of my illness. A milestone that I would rather not to have reached. When I accepted how my illness had come to be in my life, I did so with reservation. I accepted it, but refused to believe that it was unbeatable. If you would have asked me at that time if in a year I would still be in the same place, possibly even worse, I would have said that there was no way. Yet, a year came and went and I found myself in just that place. In that year I went from great hope and optimism that I had found the answer to my illness, to despair that what looked like a way out was an entrance to another labyrinth. Not all was wasted on my efforts (and the vast amount of money I spent) but the naiveté that I approached it with is gone. I have learned many great things about how to live a better life with my illness, but with that comes the real acceptance of how things are. I am no longer looking for life without being sick, but instead looking for how to live my life to it's fullest with being sick. Something that is easier said that done.

So, with this 'outing' of myself and my limitations (I know I am greatly dissapointing those of you who were believing my act of being constantly fabulous... ;) ) I enter yet another new chapter in my blogging life. That of life as it really is - the ups and the downs. The glamorous with the yucky.

Watch this space. It might get interesting.