I’ve been considering starting an FB page entitled REAL PEOPLE OF FACEBOOK, or something to that effect. Sort of a spin-off of PEOPLE OF WAL-MART. 🙂 I wouldn’t want to create an environment where all people do is complain. Complaining is never good. But being real is different than complaining. Being real is to say that we have issues, because we’re human and we live in a fallen world and life is gets hard, and sometimes we don’t deal with it like a champ. Life is also very often joyous. Beautiful. Fun. Funny. Confusing. Hurtful. It’s a myriad of ups and downs, twists and turns. It’s everything from gorgeous mountain top experiences to prickly, weedy, muddy valleys that we can’t seem to get the oomph to escape.
So say the page for REAL PEOPLE was real and I just wanted to say what my day was like. This would be my post for today:
Went to get an IV this morning, about three days too late. Because my weekend was so stressful, and because stress makes any illness worse, I wanted to bonk myself on the head for not getting it on Friday. But life happened, and I couldn’t make the trek until today.
Last night, Shaun rented a movie, and like the awesome companion I am, I fell asleep several times. When he asked me this morning if I liked the movie, my answer was, “Uhhh, what I saw of it, yes.” Whatever. At least we had a nice “IV date”, which is where he drives the 40 minutes it takes to get there, because he knows driving makes my dizziness and nausea worse, and because it’s often our only chance to talk without interruption.
Five minutes into the IV, I wanted to blow big, Alpo-sized chunks. Fifteen minutes into the IV, the nausea subsided, my brain fog left, and I was back up to I-can-watch-a-movie-without-falling-asleep par. The rest of my day has been spent sleeping, reading, watching TV and conversing with Mom, and now Facebooking and making a grocery list via all recipes dot com. I love that site. Especially since the farmhouse mice ate and pooped on my recipe books, and I had to throw them out. My family is tired of spaghetti, hamburgers, roast, tacos, and chile – the recipes I know how to make from memory.
You’d think I’d feel great after all that R and R and R: replenishment, relaxation, and rest. But what I failed to mention is that I also weeded my flower bed in between the sleep and reading, and after an hour of plucking those pesky results of the Fall, I have been sick. Hence the TV, talking, and generally sedentary activities.
In a nutshell: I have nothing exciting or extremely horrible to report. My day was just another day in the life of chronic illness, but also the privilege and joy of connecting with my husband through it all, having a few laughs with my Mom who is struggling through her own illness, and making plans for what is hopefully better days to come. Also, my flower bed makes me smile a little wider now that the flowers are not looking up at me in desperation, as if to say that any minute now, they will croak from the choke.
Exciting? No. Just real. Just an admission that I’m trudging through life’s challenges, resting in Christ, trusting Him to either give me the strength to be ill in a way that is glorifying to Him, all while holding out hope for healing. Preferably here. But if not, knowing that healing is inevitable, there. On the other side.
So that’s it. My REAL PEOPLE OF FACEBOOK post. I probably won’t start a page. But if you wanted to post or comment about your real life experience today, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Misery loves company, you know. And so does joy, laughter, beauty, and fun. We’re all in this together, and we might as well just be upfront and honest about the fact that we’re ping-ponging back and forth from valley to mountain top – and a little friendship along the way would be nice.
Felix Culpa
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In