Before I com­plete my pre­vi­ous post on being over­whelmed with (not by) fibromyal­gia, I must write the fol­low­ing post on being over­whelmed by (not with) fibromyalgia.

I am the sort that likes to plan.  I am not the sort that likes to stick to said plan.  I wish I were.  But, if I were, I think I would stick to my plans more than I do.  I allow one activ­ity to take longer than orig­i­nally planned.  I begin an unplanned activ­ity.  I get side­tracked by the plans oth­ers make.  So, to be hon­est, I plan sim­ply to feel pre­pared.  I do not plan to know what I will be doing when and where.  Fibromyal­gia makes the lat­ter type of plan­ning nearly impos­si­ble.  And for that, today I hate it (fibromyal­gia, not the afore­men­tioned fact).  I am over­whelmed and feel­ing out of con­trol of my life.

Until lately, I thought my love of plan­ning was inher­ited from my mother and her mother.  Or, at least I thought it was an envi­ron­men­tal thing.  But, to be hon­est, I think I could eas­ily explain my love of plan­ning in a totally dif­fer­ent way by sim­ply iden­ti­fy­ing what I love about plan­ning.  As men­tioned above I like feel­ing pre­pared.  That is true.  How­ever, mostly I like to plan because I can imag­ine feel­ing 100%.  I can imag­ine how my day would go if I woke up with energy, no pain, and a clear mind.  I can imag­ine last­ing until the end of the day with­out a nap and get­ting numer­ous items checked off my to do list.  I can imag­ine being able to pri­or­i­tize with­out get­ting lost in my foggy brain.  I can imag­ine my day going just as planned (or at least I can imag­ine my day not being derailed due to some­thing related to my health).

Today I wish I could plan my days, and weeks, and months, and years, and life.  I wish I could plan more than one goal per day.  I wish I could just map out all the things I want to do, try, and learn on a giant cal­en­dar and start click­ing them off, know­ing I will get to each of them.   I wish I could… And I know I can.  I just need to fig­ure out my real­i­ties, my pri­or­i­ties, and my capa­bil­i­ties.  But each time I try to think this through I wan­der off on some men­tal detour.

I think I need a vaca­tion.  Maybe Aunt Linda’s place at Cholla Bay.  Or a few days at Zuma.

I promise I’ll be over this by tonight.  Until then Imo­gen Heap and the Red Album will keep me company.

P.S. I just remem­bered I have a date with my dad tonight!  AAF AAR & Jour­ney.  This should be fun.