MG Strikes Again

Hey everyone.  My goodness, MG has been kickin' my BUTT this week.  Just not feeling my "normal."  Which is pretty darn arbitrary, actually. LOL. I mean, my "normal" hasn't had any rhyme or reason well, pretty much my whole life!  I've always been the star shaped peg trying to jam my way into the wrong slot.

Sometimes I think I still feel that way.

That's one thing about chronic illness that is really hard for other people to understand, unless you have walked a mile in my slippers, ya know?  Inside, nothing has changed, except I struggle a bit more with depression than I used to.  Not a ton, but some.  How could I not?

But like, I still want to do and be everything I wanted to do and be 20 years ago.  It's just that now I have this body that holds me prisoner, preventing me from doing those things. 

I still want to go out and have fun!  I used to be a FUN person!  I used to be the life of the party.  Now there's no parties to be the life of!  And that really bums me out. 

Lots of people say it's because of where I live.  But it's really not, because I'm talking about MY ability to leave.  It doesn't matter WHERE I am; if I don't have the strength to get dressed, I'm not going anywhere.

I want to go out for coffee with a friend.

I want to go to movies and not have to worry about who in the crowd MAY have a cold, knowing that the ONE person who MAY be ill will indubitably sit immediately behind me and hack on me all movie long.

I want to take my son to museums and children's parks and all the places that are nasty, germ-filled, over populated, and understaffed just like every other kid gets to.  I want him to go to bouncy houses and Chuck E. Cheese and movies and shopping malls and play in the play areas where there are 300 other children.  (Okay, maybe not Chuck E. Cheese.)

I want to be able to let him explore the world like any other "normal" kid.  But I can't. 

It seems like as the years go on, my lungs get worse, especially in the winter.  Every time I get sick lately I either get pneumonia or cough up buckets of blood.  So I feel like I have to rob my child of all those fun things.  And it's the crappiest feeling in the world.

On the outside, if you see me out (I HAVE been known to leave the premesis), I look good.  Because I have my hair done, make up on, and I slap a smile on my face.  But only I know what's really going on inside.

It's just tough, sometimes, to have people wonder why you can't just "buck up."  Believe me, I want to. My head wants to, my heart wants to, but this %!#%^ body just won't cooperate. And it get really old trying to explain.

So I ask you all to just bear with me, and in the words of a dear, sweet, MG friend, let me "walk with [you], awhile and hold [your] hands so [you] can guide [me] through the tears."