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Oct. 28th, 2011 10:13 amWe’re coming up on the ten year anniversary of when my fibromyalgia first became symptomatic. Ten years. There’s a part of me that can’t believe that it’s been that long, that I’ve lived that long. In some ways I still see myself as the twenty-one/twenty-two year old that I was then and in some ways she seems like a distant acquaintance, someone I knew briefly a long time ago. Time is funny that way.
I felt fulfilled as a missionary, I was active and happy and proud of the work I was doing. I remember that so clearly, just as clearly as I remember the frustration that came as I became ill, the confusion and the sadness. I wanted so desperately to continue working the way I had been and the weight of my failure for my inability to do so.
It took me a long time to get over what happened to me during the final months of 2001. It took me years to reach a place of understanding, of myself, of my body, of my religion. I had a crisis of faith which lead to a reconceptualizing of my personal religious practice. I’m not the starry-eyed girl that I was, willing to believe everything I was told.
My problems haven’t been solved, per se, but I’ve changed into a person who can better handle them. I quit my mission but I didn’t quit law school, I hung in there tooth and nail through to the end.
My disability, my religion, my background, my beliefs, these are all a part of who I am but they’re not me. We spend adolescence going to extremes, acting out to discover our boundaries or losing ourselves in causes or crusades. It’s only now that I’m finally coming to understand myself and discover the questions I should have been asking all those years ago.
A few weeks ago a friend saw a picture of me taken right before my mission. Her first response was to say how young I looked back then. It took me aback because she’s who I see in my mind, the mental image I have of myself. But I’ve earned each and every one of my gray hairs in the years since, every emerging line on my face and crinkle around my eyes. I love the girl I was but I’m starting to appreciate the woman I am.
I guess we’ll all see what happens next.
comments at http://liptonrm.dreamwidth.org/37473.html.
I felt fulfilled as a missionary, I was active and happy and proud of the work I was doing. I remember that so clearly, just as clearly as I remember the frustration that came as I became ill, the confusion and the sadness. I wanted so desperately to continue working the way I had been and the weight of my failure for my inability to do so.
It took me a long time to get over what happened to me during the final months of 2001. It took me years to reach a place of understanding, of myself, of my body, of my religion. I had a crisis of faith which lead to a reconceptualizing of my personal religious practice. I’m not the starry-eyed girl that I was, willing to believe everything I was told.
My problems haven’t been solved, per se, but I’ve changed into a person who can better handle them. I quit my mission but I didn’t quit law school, I hung in there tooth and nail through to the end.
My disability, my religion, my background, my beliefs, these are all a part of who I am but they’re not me. We spend adolescence going to extremes, acting out to discover our boundaries or losing ourselves in causes or crusades. It’s only now that I’m finally coming to understand myself and discover the questions I should have been asking all those years ago.
A few weeks ago a friend saw a picture of me taken right before my mission. Her first response was to say how young I looked back then. It took me aback because she’s who I see in my mind, the mental image I have of myself. But I’ve earned each and every one of my gray hairs in the years since, every emerging line on my face and crinkle around my eyes. I love the girl I was but I’m starting to appreciate the woman I am.
I guess we’ll all see what happens next.
