But I also have CFIDS (www.cfids.org), and have to pace myself... It's a hard lesson to learn. In fact, it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and I'm still not very good at it. These past two years--I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia late in 2003, and with CFIDS just a year ago--have been a lesson in patience and self-acceptance.
Things I would have found intolerable about myself five years ago I now accept with (a modest amount of) understanding. But slowly I am learning that I can work and rest and still have some energy left to enjoy myself. I just have to choose my enjoyments more carefully--to live like a gourmet instead of eating life at the all-night smorgasbord.
Good things have come of this: I left a job that made me terribly unhappy (I HATE CUBICLES!!!!) and started working for myself, taking on writing and editing projects. I'm planning a series of creative writing workshops that I can lead from my home (I used to do this a few years ago, and loved it), and I've also been working one-on-one with writers as a writing coach. That may be the most fulfilling work I do.
Writers--like me, for example--will always face challenges and roadblocks. There's always a reason NOT to write. But those reasons are also the very reasons why one SHOULD write. I'm too tired. Write because you're tired. I'm too busy. Write because you're busy. It will change your life. It WILL change your life.
I have a very long story, which I'll share some day, about how writing changed one girl's life forever. In some very happy ways. You might even say she lived happily ever after (even with CFIDS). And she credits writing for the changes in her life.
It's amazing what happens when you put your nightmares down on paper and watch them turn into dreams and, then, once they've been made positive, into reality. I dare anyone to write every day and not change. As a writing coach, that's what's so exciting: watching people grow and change and begin to believe in themselves and what they are capable of doing.
This may sound like a lot of mush, but it's not. It's true, and I can vouch for it.
Did writing give me a perfect life? No, of course not. No life is perfect. But it did give me the courage to speak out on my own behalf and to take the steps I needed to take to make changes that probably saved my life. And I'm sure it will happen again.
Totally new topic: I have two poems I wrote and submitted to a journal. I got a rejection letter (I actually LOVE those... They remind you you're a writer, and that you're really getting your stuff out there). Anyway, with all of my work and my current lack of energy, I decided to put them here for a while. Maybe someone will read them. Maybe not. Either way, they're "out there," instead of languishing in my computer.
So stay tuned. Hopefully I'll dig them out of my files tomorrow and post them for all the world to see. Does that scare me? Not at all. I guess--despite my too-often cynical/sarcastic attitude--that I've found the world to be a kind place. Even if sometimes it doesn't feel that way. I must remember that.
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