I wasn't always blessed to be able to stay at home with my children. I had to work until my first born was 2 1/2 and his baby sister was 6 months. I have done my fair share of bringing in money when it needed to be brought in. In home child care, cakes, whatever the need be. God has always provided. I had goals like any woman. I dreamed of the day when my kids would head back to school and I would myself head off to school and grab myself a diploma and a career. I've been called though. I've been called to be domesticated. It is the only thing I KNOW I'm good at. I can cook, clean, get 3 kids to 3 different places all at the same time, and still manage to wash my hair before the week is up. I do not regret for one moment momming and wifing. Heck, I've made threats to them that I will go find a job if they don't get it together or do their part.
Harsh reality, they're empty threats. I'll never be able to go back to work and hold down a job. I'm not dependable in that sense. The choice to do so has been robbed from me and replaced with disease and guilt.
I'm a type A personality. I have to control what is around me. If it starts to fall off pace, so do I. This makes it very difficult for someone with a chronic illness that has to live day to day. Just the simple stress of sitting here worrying about the fact that I need to do my laundry so my family doesn't have to do it for me (because it's my job) will send me into a sadness and flair up. I'm trying to put my focus on prayer and meditation when it comes to these things because it is so counterproductive of the goals I am trying to achieve health wise. I am having to learn to let go, let others in to help, let change happen. It has not been an easy thing for me to accept.
I finally got into the doc. We've been waiting a few months and at the end of this month we will begin our long drives/flights to begin treatment again after 4 years.
Time to get my house in order. Literally and figuratively.
So, here is here I segway into my title.
I like Snapchat. It's silly fun. My kids are on it. My friends are on it. It's not the devil. I could go deeper into this subject, but oh look a squirrel.
I sent out some snaps early yesterday morning of me in my facemask with my hair wrapped in a towel and I'm in a bathrobe. I expected silly comments. What I didn't expect was a message that said, "I wish I had your life. As I sit here at work."
Ouch. Gut punch. Okay. I am blessed no doubt. I have great kids, super parents, a husband that I'm afraid will work himself to death one day for all of us.(make note because I will come back to this) We need and want for nothing. See, I snap when I feel good. I instagram a selfie when I have actually had the energy to fix myself up. Because I feel accomplished. You do NOT want to see me the other 5-6 days a week. Just the day before I was stuck in bed because the night before that, my husband had to pick me up off the bathroom floor and put me in bed. Shortly after that, I vomited. I then spent the rest of the night sweating and having tremors. I cannot recall my address on a dime most days anymore. The shooting pain, cramping, and popping is making it almost impossible to get through the day without some kind of breakdown. I can no longer read long articles or get through a movie. I'm just tired. Eating hurts. It literally burns my stomach. Oh and the guilt? My husband is working himself to death, then coming home and helping out with what are supposed to be MY responsibilities.
I shove along anyway. I may go out with him this Friday night. I may pay dearly for it on Saturday and Sunday. I may sit in weather I have no business sitting in to watch my daughter's soccer games. I may continue to give little pieces of myself and time to others that I don't really have to spare. I may continue to help in anyway I can, because being a homemaker isn't just what I do, it's who I am. I do not want life to pass me by. I've lost so much time already.
So, be very careful when you say you "wish you had my life." I wouldn't wish this disease on anyone. I WISH my excuse was that I was just a lazy and privileged housewife.
"You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good." Jerry West
