Knowing My Limits

So I am still venturing through the unknown trying to figure out what it looks like to manage fibromyalgia and how to live a lifestyle that is productive for it.  I keep coming back to the same thing God has been teaching me since the day I became a mom. Man, why am I so hard-headed??

I remember reading several years ago from a fellow mommy blogger that every mom has their very own unique levels of energy and that it is important for us to realize where we are on the spectrum and to learn to live within our bounds. I  loved hearing that because I have always felt guilty for not being able "to do more." I want to be the mom that takes meals to every hurting family, I want to watch other peoples kids so that the parents can care for sick spouses or children, I want to teach in all the classes and I want to be a good friend to all the other moms and wives out there because I know we all need each other. I want to have a beautifully decorated and clean house, but more than that, I want people to feel welcomed and loved when they come in my house. And I want them here. The list goes on.

For as long as I can remember though, I have always gotten tired very easily. When I was a kid, my mom would take me shopping for clothes and I was always miserable because I would get so tired! I would get grumpy and mad, and I would tell her that I just wanted to go home and take a nap because I was too tired. Then when I was a flight attendent, I was working with women who were 10, 20, sometimes 30 years older than me. We would work the same exact schedule for 1-4 days together and at the end of every day, I would often be so tired that I felt like it was physically beyond me to walk from the airplane to the hotel shuttle. For real. It was ridiculous. I would be in the van on the way to the hotel and I would just sit there quietly anxiously waiting to collapse in my room, while my co-workers were planning what they were going to do when we got to our hotel.  I didn't understand how they had all this energy left in them.

Then I became a mom, and the exhaustion went to a whole other level. Why could I not "go, go, go" like everyone else does? Why is taking care of the basic needs of our family enough to max me out. How can all these other moms go strong all day long with their kids in tow and still have the energy not to fall asleep at the wheel??

So here I am now and I deal with not only the tiredness, but my body screams at me when I push myself beyond my limits even in the tiniest bit.

All of this leads to where I am today...which I think might be a whole other post...:)

To be continued...