You have limitations, don't go chasing flies/ I must be protective/ You cannot be reckless/ That's what is expected/ when you are infected . . .

Gather round, kiddies. I haven't been writing as much in the last two weeks or so due to my fibro. Apparently, my body has now decided it's great fun to let me think I'm holding the leash, only to be reminded in the morning who the bitch is.

It's hard. Mostly, I don't talk about it, because I'm busy living and doing and being a good little match girl. But lately, if I do (1) "out of the box" event, I'm paying for it for a week. When I'm dancing on tables and shot gunning caffeine and booze down my throat in equal measures (what? Isn't that what you do at a sci-fi/fantasy con?), I know that the bill is going to come due and I'll sign my name and take the hit to be low grade ill for a week.

But when it's smaller events that simply require getting up early, or staying out late, or being outside when it's a little cold and the bill comes due, demanding similar tribute as a weekend of debauchery, it's more than dispiriting.

This is also where I tend to have trouble interacting with others, even loved ones. Because I don't look sick most of the time and can put on a pretty decent act about being a real girl, it's easy for many to live primarily in Denial Island. When it gets bad, the reaction often shoots over to Ohmigod It's Like You're Dyingville, which is also completely exhausting in other ways. Getting only one of two of those reactions often feels completely skitzo to me, because I live with this every damn day whether I want to or not.

Those close to me want to hear my usual Pollyana attitude, that I will push through this and I will be better again on a cocktail of meds, sunshine, and wishes. That this is just a rough patch. I will be normal again and no one will have to worry anymore. I will be drinking champagne and wearing too much jewelry and laughing again.

And here's where my crisis of faith always happens. I can't promise anyone that. I don't know when and if I'll get better again or if I'm at another dip in the road.

Words that are meant to be encouraging like, we'll get through this, aren't. I'm getting through it right now, thank you. I want my fucking life back. I don't want to just get through this. Digging my claws into my job and being able to write >500 words a day and being able to spin >1 oz in a day (and not both together, let's not get crazy!), trying to socialize for a couple hours, and trying to manage making dinner isn't my fucking life. It's substandard. It's unacceptable. Attempts to find the magic scientific equation (if I just do x amount of work in y day, I will have z energy . . .) are equally frustrating.

I'm sure you'd like this entry to feel a little more occultish and a little less lj. It's the thought I am afraid to even have - what is the point of this? What is the point of my fibromyalgia? Who am I when it rules me? Who would I be if I were without it? Is it a matter of, oh sorry kid, we live in a random ass universe where random ass shit happens and you shot craps? Is there a purpose to it? To make me more magically delicious? To make me stronger, faster, harder, more appreciative, more introspective? Because let me tell you something, days like today, I want to give that fucker back, if it's some kind of so-called "gift". And let me tell you, while my magic is effective and while my character sheet dots have been balanced in other ways (that I always have loved ones, that I always have enough money, etc), nothing I've ever accomplished has frankly been impressive enough to warant this level of what's been of late constant suckage. I wish I were more deluded, that I was constantly fucking around on the astral, thinking I'm pew! pew! pewing! my way into some kind of huge bit of arcane power through my sacrifice.

And if it's not for some divine purpose, or not in my gods control, why is it happening? And if it is in my gods control, why do they let me live like this? I mean, I know, starving children in Africa, someone always has it worse, blahfuckingblah. Other people having it worse is often at best an intellectual concept to me when it gets this bad for me.

I keep thinking, that somehow living with this is something I can just power through and overpower through sheer force of will, and that's what most of my days are when it's not this bad. In the last 21 . . .I keep failing. I don't even fail better. I. Just. Keep. Failing.

Two crows are sitting at my window, their backs politely to me as I sniffle at my desk at work. Always there. Always watching.

I just feel . . .lost. Because, what if I don't get better again this time? What if this is it and it's just a slow steady decline?

If I were a Catholic still, I would believe that my God had a plan and a purpose to this. If I were a mage, I would believe my magic could make me better and I could return to at least my former sick self through my will. But I'm neither. I'm just another lost dilettante with no answers.