Fair warning...this is a rant/gripe session.

It's been a while since I blogged about the fibro. Today it was unavoidable.

For the last week, it has been gloomy and cloudy and just...blah. Makes me wonder how on earth folks in Seattle deal with all that rain. I seriously would not know what I would do if I had to deal with that day in and day out for months. Its bad enough I'm not nice after this last week of yuck, put me in that situation and I could not be responsible for my actions.

Case in point. Four days ago, I had severe anxiety attacks that kept me awake all night. The next day the fibro pain was nasty. Saturday, I had a video hangout scheduled for questions and answers for Diary of a Crazy Cat Lady and it was a bust. I was pretty bummed. Then my kitchen drain clogged. Yeah...sometimes its not worth getting out of bed. Trust me, if it didn't drive me crazy to not be doing something, I would still be under the covers hiding from the world.

Last night, another wonderfully sleepless night <insert severe sarcasm here>, I wake to another gloomy day ((think Eeyore talking here)) and head to breakfast with my friend Kathy and the Mouse. Because its 500% humidity outside, I turn into a frizzy mess as soon as I walk out the door. No one is doing the speed limit on the roads and Mouse is talking a blue streak. Don't ask what about, I haven't a clue. Oh! Did I mention that I awoke to He's Got the Whole World in His Hands sung so off key I thought it was a Gregorian Chant at first? **sigh** I love the Mouse, but she couldn't sing to save her life.

So, I get to Denny's and go to the table that is occupied by my Buddy, her mom and sister, ask for coffee and a smoothie for Mouse and take my seat. So far so good. Then the feathers hit the fan. Really, I wasn't tense when I left the house, I really wasn't. I was annoyed about the serenade, but not anywhere near tense. When the coffee still wasn't there after five minutes, I got tense...fast. It wasn't as if the girl was slammed, there were three tables occupied and two servers. I felt the tension rise and warned the table about it.

While we were there, I managed to tick off the waitress pretty good. I know, I know...don't do that. I couldn't help it. She didn't come back to the table to check on our coffee fast enough...my breakfast was cold and cooked wrong and she was very aloof. Maybe she caught my tenseness, I don't know. Whatever the reason, when I got my breakfast back, she brought a HUGE bowl of strawberries and whipped cream (I wanted them on my waffle...not the side. Sheesh!) and then my egg. Still no coffee warm up and my tension goes higher. At this point, I'm sure I look like I'm ready to eat my young.

Understand, I don't have an anger issue. I put that behind me with the help of Christ a long time ago. I understood that it was counter-productive and not good for my health. Besides, it whacks out the fibro something fierce, so I avoid it like the plague as much as possible. With eight cats, two dogs and Mouse 24/7, that's quite the feat, but it's doable. Except for today. This waitress was out to take me to a level I hadn't been to in a long time and she didn't even know it. I had to take a time out and go to the bathroom to ask God for help, I was that stressed.

Come checkout time, I asked about a charge on the ticket.This caused the checkout to be almost as stressful as breakfast time and in my frustration, I didn't leave a tip. Understand, there is never a time that I don't leave some sort of tip. I left the parking lot and realized that  not only did I not leave a tip for her, but I was being unfair. I turned around and took her a tip and in return got a surprise bear hug.

I write all of this because this is part and parcel of some of the things that we go through with fibromyalgia. Folks don't understand that not only is it physical, but its emotional and mental and to some degree, spiritual. I think that if I didn't have God on my side that I would have been a very ugly person, indeed. I mean, I was ugly, don't get me wrong, and I apologised to the waitress when I gave her the tip, but I could have been much worse...the nightmare customer that everyone avoids. Praise God that He reminded me that I was unfair, that she might depend on that money to help keep a roof over her head or food in her family's stomachs. I made her day pretty miserable and I certainly wouldn't want someone like me to do that to me.

Like I said, this is a part of fibro that not everyone talks about. It creeps up on you and sometimes like that annoying itch you can't reach, you can't get rid of it. These are the kinds of days that shutting yourself in your room and ignoring the whole day is a bonus if you can do it, most of us can't. Seriously, everyone has these kinds of days...everyone, but when the flares kick in, and the emotions go out of whack it's hard to believe that anyone else goes through the same thing. The only thing to do at this point is to pray for help and know that God hears our pleas and responds. He may not always answer our prayers the way we want with instant relief, but we will always get an answer.

I'm going to go find something to do to distract me from the bad start of my day now. Perhaps a butterfly will come along or my cardinal will come up to the window and bring a smile to my face. =o)

 Here's hoping that your day is abundantly blessed!