Spoons?

For those of you that have a chronic illness yourself, I’m sure you’ve heard about spoons. If you haven’t, check out: http:/http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ it’s a pretty interesting way to look at illness. Essentially it says that people with illness have a certain amount of spoons that they are allotted in a given day. Once the spoons run out, they’re gone. You have to be very careful how to choose to spend your spoons. You can save them up, or spend them as you get them. The choice is yours. The reason I’m thinking about this today is due to a conversation I had with my mom over the weekend. I was explaining to her how much attention the blog has been getting lately (YAY!!!), and how the sense of support has been overwhelming. On the flip side to that, putting my personal story online for others to view opens me up for others judgement. Honestly, that’s not something I was suspecting. Maybe I was naive, but I thought it would just be a place for me to process my crazy world while maybe providing others with some new information about chronic illness from the inside, or at least give them a good laugh (remind me to write about the time I peed my pants at work…ahh, I digress…). Now, no one has been outrightly rude, but I’ve received several comments about my personal choices, and my response is this: I can spend my spoons however I want to. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got. Somedays I have 500 spoons and I can live my life as I normally would, somedays I’m given 1 and I can’t get out to bed. It depends on the day, the hour and the second sometimes. There are some nonnegotiable in my life. I am a mom and a wife and that is my #1. I will spend all my energy on my kids first and foremost. I have a job that I am absolutely in love with. While I am exhausted, being a teacher is something (right now) that I can’t imagine giving up. Our families health insurance comes from my job, and anyone who is sick (or has children) knows…health insurance isn’t an optional luxury. It’s a must. I am also a student. Going to graduate school is something that I am doing for ME, and that’s not something I focus on very often. I love my maters program. It makes me feel GOOD. It’s tiring and it’s a lot of work (understatement of the century..), but I love to learn, and I’m not ashamed to admit, I love getting A’s.

When I was going through my undergraduate program I experienced a great loss in my life and my life went into a tailspin. Because of this my grades suffered, drastically. My undergrad GPA is NOT a true reflection of me, but now, I have a 4.0 and I am SO proud of that. Just because I’m sick, I’m not willing to let that go. Come hell or high water, I’m graduating in May 2016 with a masters degree, and I’ll have a 4.0! All of the other stuff, is just that, stuff. If I have enough spoons, I’ll do it, if I don’t, I won’t. I’m sorry in advance to those that are upset because I have to break plans or I’m not very chipper. I am doing my very best, and that’s all I can do. I have the big Lyme appointment tomorrow when we discuss treatment and timelines. Tomorrow may bring a different amount of spoons into my world, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

PS- Thanks for all the love and support…I can’t tell you how much it means to me.