Birthday Eve Reflections

Tomorrow is my birthday and I find myself in a reflective mood. For the first time in, I think, forever, I actually feel my age.  Normally, I have to stop to think about how old I am and it constantly catches me by surprise.  I mean, how did I get this *old*? Wasn't I just graduating high school yesterday? Figuring out a major in college? Getting my first real job?  How have so many years passed by since those events?

I know that a big part of it is in my head right now.  It's not in a good place.  I went and picked up the paperwork for HR that I'd asked my rheumatologist to fill out.  I guess I didn't do a good job of explaining what, exactly, it was that I needed and what the purpose of that questionnaire was.  I'm sure he probably thought he was doing me a favor by, in essence, saying that I was just fine and capable of doing my job, as far as he knew.  But what he really did was throw me under the bus.

I mean, he's the one who diagnosed me with fibro in the first place and now he's trying to say that it has no impact on my life? I need to have medical documentation that I've been diagnosed with a chronic condition that does, in fact, have the possibility of impacting my daily life.

To add to this, it took over an hour and a half to get home from his office due to absolutely insane traffic.  Everywhere.  So I'm trying to get myself and my son home, dealing with this bombshell (of course, he's not there on Fridays, he filled it out after my appointment yesterday) and trying not to give in to the mounting panic attack and we're just not getting anywhere.  On surface streets.  Not only was traffic not moving but then it turned out the road I was on ended up being closed so I had to detour a different way.  With the traffic on the street it took me to at a complete standstill.  All I can say is that it was a truly horrific journey.  We had picked up a special dinner to enjoy at home, something I'd been looking forward to for days, and by the time we finally made it home I could hardly make myself eat anything. All in all, not a trip I care to repeat.  Ever.

I know that there is absolutely nothing I can do about this problem this weekend so I am going to try to make it through the next two days without thinking about (okay, dwelling on) it. I want to go and have a good time and enjoy my birthday tomorrow, doing some walking at the 100 Mile Club Run4Kids. The 100 Mile Club is a great organization and we've been looking forward to this event for weeks now. For us, the fact that it was falling on my birthday just adds to the excitement. I'm hoping to see some friends there and to spend time walking with my husband and son, enjoying what should be a beautiful Southern California day.

I had really intended to do more reflecting on the past year rather than just the events of today but those few hours were so incredibly stressful that I guess they just overshadowed everything temporarily. I'll spend time tomorrow reflecting on my 51st year of life as I mark the first day of the 52nd. Then I'll hopefully spend some time putting those thoughts down. And maybe, just maybe, when I do I'll feel 20 years younger instead of 20 years older.