In my dreams!

Ever since I was a young girl, I have dreamed of being an energetic housewife, baking and cooking from scratch. I would keep an immaculate house as well and my washing would be as white as snow.

Of course, I would iron everything that was on the line and my pantry shelves would be well organised with the spices kept in alphabetical order. And it was so for the first two years of my first  marriage.

But then much sickness came into my life, heralded by displaced discs and Scheurmann's Disease, and the dream evaporated as quickly as my energy and eroded discs.

This dream kept springing back in fits of discontent with myself and no small amount of false guilt. With the onset of heart disease, diabetes and fibromyalgia, the dream became a nightmare that taunted me. 

Perfectionism pointed its' knobbly finger at me, taunting me and demanding I try harder. It insisted that I find my worth in my homemaking abilities as a woman, and I was miserable as well as in pain.

It took until I was into my 20th year with fibromyalgia to realise that my worth as a woman was not on how well I kept my house. 

I decided to focus on the fact that God loves me just as I am and that helped remove the false guilt.

So now, in my 67th year, and my maladies worsening, I have had to put the dream to rest. I am never going to be the woman of my dreams. I have someone come to clean for me once every two weeks and I have learned to be grateful.

Only in accepting your illness can you find peace. Our womanhood is not only about keeping an immaculate house. And as I look at my clean house today, I am glad that we have the Aged care package that allows home care help. 

As I talk to you now, I smile at the irony: my energy comes through the woman who cleans, and my home is still clean. I have a maid in my later years- and that's something I thought would only come to be in my dreams! 

Today's lists of to do's are:

Make our bed

Do a load of washing

Fold yesterday's clothes

Make a sweet curry stew with rice for dinner

The gentle art of getting on

As you know, this Corona Virus has got us isolating at home. We have been getting a lot done around the house as our focus has been on homemaking.

With being together 24/7 it sometimes happens that we get on each others' nerves. I think it comes from an underlying anxiety about what's going to happen and being stir-crazy.

Whatever, it is a lesson in self-control, patience, kindness and loving one another inspite of the circumstances. Because we still do love one another.

Close quarters like this last week has shown both of us that we are not as nimble and not as fit as we were twenty years ago. But it has also shown us that we are mighty grateful for each other in spite of transient tensions.

Ladders are now not  climbed easily, wherein tempers can be frayed easily. Like I said, it's a lesson in all the above things. 

Spending time with each other in this trial is a double edged sword: we are grateful for each other as we are, but are afraid of life without each other. We are realising how vulnerable we really are. 

Like it or not, we are in this together and are facing life as one. Which is why the lesson will be quickly learned: the gentle art of getting on. 

Alas, I have no children to help!

So today is another dreary day of fibromyalgia, pain and chronic fatigue. I honestly don't know when this fibro flare is going to end or if this is how my life is going to be forever!

I didn't do the dishes last night! Looking back, I know that was a huge mistake. This morning I was faced with icky slimey water that was steaming hot in a previous lifetime, but now has cooled down making my stick of dishwashing soap a gooey mess.

Overnight the dishes seemed to have multiplied while I slept, with more teacups Chris used during the night (for he is a night owl), and more now with breakfast and lunch dishes.

I look at them, sigh and promise myself I will do them. And I will. After a nana nap.

Nana naps sometimes help me and are becoming a necessary fact of life for me. They used to be voluntary, but now they are mandatory. If I don't give in to my chronic fatigue and take a nap, my body wilts and my eyes have trouble focussing. I literally go cross eyed trying. I have heard this happens often for the poor Fibromite in a bad flare.

So today's list is again a simple one:

1. Rest
2. Dishes
3. Cook tea which will be fish, chips and salad.

I sure hope I feel better after my nap: those dishes aren't going to do themselves and alas, I have no children to help!