Please Be Kind...Rewind

Something occurred to me the other day about care giving when I was having a discussion with my husband. I call them discussions when something he may be doing is annoying me. And believe me when I tell you that this was a long discussion.

You see, my husband either believes that we have little pixies that clean the bathroom, kitchen, and pick up dirty laundry, or he has a tendency to take me for granted. And since I don't believe that pixies live on Earth, I'm going to go with the later explanation.

Now, don't get me wrong, my husband is a wonderful man, but he's human, and humans tend to forget things. And of course, I can be a pretty good gal and be able to clean house on my good days, but again, I'm only human and my flares prohibit me from doing what I want.

But what occurred to me was that he and I have two very different ways of giving help. You see, if someone asks me to do some wash for them, I'll take it upon myself to separate lights, darks, and delicates, check for tough stains and pretreat, and then proceed to do the wash. On the other hand my husband will hear the same task, and put everything together in one load and hit start. Now, both accomplish the same task in essence. But one may give you pink underware and baby doll shirts. But, at least it's done, right?

Well, I could say right, but on those days that it happens, I get very frustrated and upset. I feel like it's really my fault that my sweater will better fit my 9 month-old now than me, but it really wasn't my fault. And then I feel like I just should have done the task myself so I could save all of the aggrevation. But that really isn't the answer either when you have a bad flare.

I like to think of those types of situations as a "Please be kind...Rewind". And what I mean by that is that there are many people out there who love us and try to help us in many ways when they understand what we are going through with the pain of Fibromyalgia. Sometimes, though, even the ones who seem to understand may slip up and forget how hard life can be for someone who feels like a truck hit them right after they mop a floor. And when this happens, I try and think of a time when that person was understanding and try and calm myself down. In other words-- I rewind. The being kind usually happens later when I'm calm, but you get my point.

So if this every happens to you, try and think about hitting the rewind button.

Stay Fabulous!
Love and friendship,
Kimberley