I woke up today feeling that familiar slammed by a bus feeling.

FLARE.

The one that I always think I have evaded when I have a series of "almost like before days."

I have been organizing and going through my 100+ albums ever since last Monday. At first I felt this manic pressure to finish that massive project in one day. It felt so dang good to be DOING something again, let alone something I love such as organizing. Call me weird, but I have always adored getting things in order. Not much for cleaning, but I am in my element when I get to organize.

Since the strength comes in tiny waves I take what I can get. Imagine my surprise when I worked for hours every day this week, amongst the normal appointments, taking care of Mylie, and the other daily to-do's, and did not feel the "repercussion" as I normally do. Last night I sat up, unable to sleep... after sobbing to God and writing furiously in my journal about the tangle of emotions I feel at moving and having to go without Mylie, I ended up watching movies online and smirking to myself. I thought I had gotten rid of fibromyalgia.

Yes, that's me. I must confess that each time there is a tiny reprieve in fibro symptoms, I think maybe it's gone. Logically I understand that is not true, but I so want to believe it. I very much want to think I went to bed and it went away just as quickly as it came on and stole my life.

I had wild dreams all night. God speaks to me especially through dreams. I don't know specifics all of the time, but I have known about friends and family members' pregnancies, etc. before they've announced it, and other things like that. A lot of times over the last year I have had dreams riddled with anxiety. Situations where I am left behind, or someone is after me... blah, blah. You get the gist. It's pretty obvious where those dreams come from.

I usually have a series of dreams. Not just one, delicious dream but several over the course of sleep. Last night I was dreaming I was in a school. The hallway was lined with lockers and I was going on some kind of field trip. My friend Mandy was walking with me, but she was holding back a few steps. I don't know where we were all going, but I was forcing myself to "be fine." I could feel the pain come over... that sensation of knife to bone from the feet to my head. I ignored it and continued walking. I was clenching a dixie cup in one hand and weird animal sounds began to sneak out as tears dripped down my face. It hurt so very bad, just like in real life. A teacher was called over and immediately I was called out and sat in an office. Aaron was also called out of line and he came into the office where I lay like a wounded animal.

Then I woke up to a flare.

My mind is a melting pot these days. I waver between elation at moving on, and guilt for leaving behind the one person I adore most on the planet. 3 weeks feels like no time at all, and still I am ready. I know, wholly, that God is calling me to North Carolina. The verse He gave me last summer is what I cling to:

1 God's Message came to me: 2 "Son of man, you're living with a bunch of rebellious people. They have eyes but don't see a thing, they have ears but don't hear a thing. They're rebels all. 3 So, son of man, pack up your exile duffel bags. Leave in broad daylight with everyone watching and go off, as if into exile. Maybe then they'll understand what's going on, rebels though they are. 4 You'll take up your baggage while they watch, a bundle of the bare necessities of someone going into exile, and toward evening leave, just like a person going off into exile. 5 As they watch, dig through the wall of the house and carry your bundle through it. 6 In full sight of the people, put the bundle on your shoulder and walk out into the night. Cover your face so you won't have to look at what you'll never see again. I'm using you as a sign for the family of Israel."
Ezekiel 12:1-6

I knew then what God was asking me to do. I also knew it was not the right time. I was to pray on it and seek His wisdom. It was harder for me to wait on the Lord, then it would have been to leave at that time. There were still things He wanted to do in me and through me and to me. There have been so many instances of confirmation of the scripture above. I am amazed at how God has used this past year to prepare my heart and the hearts of those around me. There are no coincidences, and I fully believe that God has paved the way for this transition. Last night all I could do was sob and ask God to go ahead of me. For every stop on our drive cross country, every person I interact with... I ask that Jesus would be present. I don't want to do this without Him. NO way. On the chance that I am relying on my own wisdom, I begged God to show me that this is His plan and not my own. I don't want to go where He would not have me go.

My head is all over the place on this day. I am full of swelled emotion. I am liberated and castrated all at once. Is this a step forward or a step back?

Maybe a bit of both. Necessary either way. I am no longer able to hold a job. Maybe someday, but not now. No way. I can barely function on days like today. My brain is mush and my body settles into it's lethargic state with no sign of relenting. I no longer function normally in the outside world. I can fake it pretty well by now, but who wants to do that? North Carolina will be beneficial. It's slower paced and peaceful. Free from old responsibilities that tend to creep up on me even now, after almost 2 years of this new lifestyle. Most people don't know what to do with a sick person. We're the odd ones out now. Either they act normal and ignore the health issues, or they walk on eggshells like the sick person is no longer a real person. It's disheartening at best.

As I perused the photo albums I saw glimpses into my old life... all of the old lives really. I saw myself as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, and a few of now. It made me realize that what I have experienced in life these 3 decades is merely a drop in the bucket compared to the span of the average life. My 20's have become lumped in with the teen years and childhood. Quaint, fond memories but no longer valid today. Liken that to how the years of our youth become hazy memories. Brown around the edges. Wonderful, deep, lovely memories preserved in our minds but no longer vivid. That is what my life before fibromyalgia has become. A memory.

I have no idea if this happens naturally as age advances. Will the 30's become like the 20's and so on? Probably. I am not certain most times if I feel so decrepit because I am 31 years old or because I am sick, or both. I have lost the energy or desire to keep up with the trends. I rely on the girls to inform me of pop culture and I no longer feel that insane pressure that housed on my back all throughout my 20's.... career, marriage, children... it has all become a misty dream. A life I once desired, but now seems so alien.

In a burst of anger and despair months ago I tore up my bucket list. It was a full list, and many things were crossed off, but there were still many dreams I had. It was at a low point of this illness that I relinquished it all. It was not for me anymore. I relented to a life full of appointments and feeling too sick to dalliance with the world outside.

Yesterday I felt a brimming excitement inside of my heart. I started to dream. It was one thought. One thing to put on a new, refined to my lifestyle now, bucket list. Only one thing, but it was enough. I burst into tears. Am I starting to hope again? Am I starting to believe I can have more then what I have settled for these last 2 years?

I may never again cart around 5 or 6 children at once. I may not bungee jump again, or ride roller coasters, or do zany things on a whim, but I am still here beneath all of the hurt and grief this illness has brought on. I am not gone. I have not disappeared. Realizing that yesterday was gratifying and lovely and so beautiful. HOPE. It came back.

I recently finished a tasty read: Water For Elephants, and last night was able to watch the film. I absolutely love this book. I love that the main character is now a man in his late nineties and he is looking back on the most significant time of his life. The time when he was most alive, most impassioned. It may sound foolish to my peers. 31 is not old at all. In fact we are still babies in comparison to those that have walked decades longer, but with illness you feel old. You feel weathered. You do feel like the elderly woman or man sitting in a wheelchair or laying in bed, while the world goes on around you. You hear news of weddings, pregnancies, promotions, travels... and it all seems like some grand book on a shelf. That's not life anymore for you. I look back and I am so amazed and grateful for every single season of my life thus far. The good, the bad, and the mundane. It all led me to now. It all aided my growth and compassion and has filled me to overflowing.

As I flipped through all of those long ago photos, I tried to place myself amongst them. I could see the grim face I wore all through junior high and high school when I refused to smile. I hated having my picture taken. I saw the easy smiles that came on as the years progressed and I found true joy in Christ and in my own body. The lifelong friends I have had, the sweet fellowship that blessed me abundantly throughout my 20's, my precious family adding and subtracting with the births and deaths, and of course the children. My little flock. I have said it several times before and I will say it again. I am all of who I ever was and yet still a mystery. I am the same girl and yet I am still discovering the parts of me that will only be revealed with time, experience, sacrifice.

Today marks 14 years to the day that I lost my precious child. I was not far along, maybe 8 or 9 weeks. We had no way to know whether it was a boy or a girl, but we named him Adrian. I never forget my child. I never forget the life that I carried. I have healed and I have let go of the image I clung to in my mind for years... the fantasy I used to draw upon of my child, but I will always remember. Losing a baby is not something one simply forgets. I know the due date and I know the death date. I always regret not having a ceremony for my child. I was so young, so naive. I just lay back on that hospital bed with my school bus socks, and let the doctor do his business. When he showed me the clumps of tissue that had been my baby I just looked at it in the little throw up basin. I should have kept it. Should have buried it. But now is not the time for regrets, it is a time to let go.

And that is what this move signifies to me. Letting go. Letting go of all of the me's I ever was in order to become who I am now, in Christ. Letting go of childhood Janet, Chick Fil A Janet, Christian Janet, Janet the nanny, workaholic Janet, Janet the planner, etc.
I am all of those me's and yet I long to be free of the chains of the past, the chains of the present, and the chains that I lock on to myself. God says:

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:39

THAT is who I long to be. I remember at 29 standing in the Philippines, astounded that I was so far from all I had ever known. In love with this foreign place that felt more like home then the United States ever had. I remember at 22 standing in Georgia after eating cornbread and homemade soup marveling at the fact that I was on my own. I remember everything, and I am so fiercely in love with the God who brought me through it all and who never once left my side. Even on the most dismal of days I have been able to call upon the strength of my Lord. I have never once been abandoned by Him, never once been a fool to love Him and trust Him. Even when I cannot see the good, He creates good! Who else can do that?!

My life has been so rich and full. I have trivial concerns and I have major ones. I have fears and questions and doubts and sadness and pain, but I also have joy unmerited. I have a God who see's me, who knows all the business there is to know about me, and who still chooses me and adores me anyway. I am being equipped by THE equipper, prepared by THE preparer, and I am absolutely tickled by this.

Because of God I have a community of fibro sisters.

Because of God I have food in my belly and a place to lay my head at night.

Because of God I am able to withstand this trial.

Because of God I am made stronger in MY weakness.

Because of God I am whole.


Moving away is breathtakingly bittersweet. I am full of tears one minute, and excitement in the next. I wonder....

and I dream.




Currently reading: I Am Memory
Currently Watching: Soul Surfer