Get out.

Physically & emotionally the past day or two have been awful. Scale of 1-10, a 17. When I went upstairs yesterday to check on Chai bunny & try to examine her & see if she is still sick (long story, but she's possibly sick & I'm still freaking) I took this shot of her. She was mad, sick of me trying to examine her, & mad that I've been spending all my time downstairs while the parents are gone, & I'm taking care of Macy cat,who is also sick. We should just open a damn clinic here. This picture is so cute & funny, & after I took it Chai took off to the corner & thumped loudly to show her frustration. I don't blame her. Sitting here crying I see myself looking into the tunnel watching fibromyalgia among other things take over my life, no matter how hard I fight to keep going. God I just want to give up yet also just beat the shit out of it-& I can't really do either. It's so frustrating. The toll constant intense pain has on a person can honestly drive them to madness, in a heartbeat. How long does that heart manage to keep beating?

 

Time capsule-makeup day 1-#HAWMC/WEGO

We are to put together a time capsule about our specific health focuses, illnesses, stories to be opened in the year 2112. Of course I would provide news clippings of medicines that were used, treatments available, etc. All of the cold hard facts...but much more I would let my pictures, my old journals from when this illness really took hold, my personal story put a face on fibromyalgia. I would include my normal daily life. How I wrap into myself, iPod on & noise reducing headphones in-dad being my ears for listening for the nurse to call me back-what music I listened to in waiting rooms. The paintings I did when the pain got so bad I couldn't sleep. What movies & books I took lessons from in survival skills. Most important I would let my self portraits speak for themselves. They would be the face of what this does to a person, & I would include pics from before I got so sick as well, though I look mostly the same-but showing my life overseas, teaching, being a productive citizen of this country.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 26-tag line-Pain worth a pic-#HAWMC/WEGO

Today we are to come up with a tag line for our illness or blog or just overall focus. After living & working & traveling all over the world taking pictures, I missed the creative outlet so much. After a year of being housebound, I turned the camera inward. If this illness could destroy me but it not show itself outwardly, I decided to give it a face. My Flickr accounts turned to a pic a day blog, & it's grown from there. I had said once or twice that phrase...pain worth a pic, & I feel it really sums up the education & knowledge that drives me to keep doing this blog. These two pics show how I was feeling today. Hopeless, guilty, sad, scared, angry, & wanting to at once disappear yet to face this illness as well.

 

 

Day 24- Mascot a go-go #HAWMC-WEGO

Our topic for today is to have a mascot for our illnesses or health focus. I'm choosing my own name...the reverted butterfly. Within a year or so into my becoming housebound & getting involved online, I discovered that many of the groups out there have butterflies as their logos or animal so to speak. I liked the thought, but as I had spent the last decade of my life living & teaching overseas, I felt the opposite. I was lucky enough to have lived in Indonesia, the Czech Republic, & had traveled in Australia, Asia, Brazil, etc. I felt like I had reverted back to the cocoon stage but was fully grown, so when I started my picture a day blog, I chose to refer to myself as a reverted butterfly. The important part I felt was to be honest-to paint a true picture, but also to be positive. I am trying to fight my way out of this new cocoon. Even if I never fully get out I'll never stop fighting, & to me that is my main message. I painted a picture of a purple butterfly, as fibro's color is purple, fighting to escape the cocoon stuck on a tree branch. You can see I have windows into my world from the cocoon, & damaged wings are sticking out, trying to stay a part of the world from this strange new wrapping of life.

 

 

Submerged

For a chronically sick person, we all know that whether it's physical or emotional, etc there is the overall picture. Pretty parts, confusing parts, abstract bits, things you somewhat understand & some that are baffling, but if you look at the close up, there is so much submerged below the surface. Much darker, supportive, hidden parts. My hidden things are so humiliating. So embarrassing. They make me feel like I'm 7 yet 87 at the same time, yet I'm no Benjamin Button. As open as I am there are a few things I keep deep, deep down for fear of the reveal of some things that happen often & feel so crushing.

 

 

Prettying up the mundane

Lately a few things have happened-been said-etc in which the subject was played up or down to disguise the honest truth. Not lies, just made-up or tweaked in order to appear a bit better. If you strip down me to my absolute basics, am I too much to take on? Have the medicines that make me gain weight change minds? Do the humiliating truths of the basic life & personal care & lack of force someone's decision one way or another? Is the real me, not cropped & photoshopped so different that offers & futures come down to that? The real me? I don't know if I want to know the answer. Just like this simple picture of my AM/PM medicine strips is made to look prettier, cooler looking...not as boring & honest as the actual 'weekly filling of the pill strips' that I hate doing just too much for someone to admit into their lives? I honestly don't know.

 

Sides of sides

I just watched Bridesmaids, & had no idea it was as serious as it was funny. I often feel like the main character-left behind while everyone else is married with 7 kids & perfect jobs, etc. Of course that isn't the case-& everyone sees & takes information & life differently. We all interpret the same thing so vastly unique, & as lonely & out on a limb as I feel I know there are those who feel the same though to me they seem to have everything together. This is a painting I did, & put through different techniques just a few tweaks off you get interpretations that are miles apart. I have no answers or solutions to which one is the way my life should o, & I'm not going to pretend that it is easy in any way, shape, or form. I do know that I like each picture for their own merits, pros & cons.

 

 

 

Mind on fire

This is the state of my Chaosed Mind. The scary, the part that misfires & causes me to seize up & fall, the part that causes me to lose so much strength in my hands (why I have been tested for MS twice in 4 years), the memories, the fears, the stress dreams, the fog, the over active pain center, the hopes, the wants, the needs, the creative, the stings, the grasps, the missed, the smiles, the music, the poetry

The Ring

I talked to a dear friend for over an hour tonight. I laughed so much that I cried after the call. Cried as I realized how long it had been-how much we had changed but picked up as hardly any time had gone by-discussed my future. What might be, or could be, or shouldn't be. Laughed at our past memories & stories we had lived & written. Afterwards my mind went wild, & I had to create something to quiet the possibilities in my head.