Beautiful Surrender

I want to massage my face with a fork.

This is the first thing I said to my husband as I crawled into bed tonight.

Some things I don’t talk about very often (cough *ever* cough)…
I have Lupus.
It is a chronic Auto Immune Disease that I battle with daily. Every second. Every mil-a-second. (Is there such-a-thing?)

Apparently I was born with it, that and a hole in my heart. So when the Dr. was explaining to my very young mother…that her 4 lb. pre-mature baby girl, with blue legs, also has a hole in her heart, and her blood cells are killing themselves off…she was told to “just hold me.” That on the off chance that I survived, I would never be normal…..

BOY WERE THEY RIGHT!

and so my battle began. I was born with my dukes up, a can-do attitude, that at times teeters on the brink of “nobody tell me that I can’t, cuz I will friggn’ prove you wrong every time.
NOTE: This Rock hard  stubbornness has come back to bite me in the-you-know-what at times. ( Like when my O.B. shook his head when I was 18 and told me “No children for you, it would be too high of a risk)
Tsk, Tsk, Tsk….yeah I won that argument…   :0/


ANYwho short re-cap….Lupus, me, stubborn, beating odds/me being totally retarded…literally.

From day one my Immune system was next to nothing,I had a hole in my heart, 4 lbs., severe learning disabilities,traumatic childhood including much abuse, multiple moves and family changes, 10 new schools...
#notgreatodds

and she is making it people, she is.

The one thing,(maybe two things) I have learned in the making of me is not being afraid to be vulnerable, and learning to surrender. Me, yes me the girl that beat, and continues to beat the odds, personally, in my marriage, and even in my adoptions and health...that is the secret to winning this battle...knowing the flaws and weak spots in me, and learning to love them, LISTEN to them, and make them stronger with acceptance and so very much tenderness.

Last weekend I took my oldest baby girl at home for a Birthday swim. It was splendid. I soaked in the sun, I drifted aimlessly in the lazy river (In my next life I am so having one of those surround my house. (Lazy River/ some-might-call-it-a-Moat, Potato/Patoto)
I giggled with her and talked boys as we waited in line for the "Totally Tubular" Slide...

......and I stayed in the sun too long. It isn't that I didn't load on the sun screen, it is that with Lupus, I have extreme sun sensitivity...so since last Saturday, I have developed a blazing, bumpy, nasty full body rash.
It is miserable. I am paying the piper for my day in the sun. This rash is all over my face, behind my ears, in the creases of my eyelids...to say it SUCKS would be an understatement. I want to take sandpaper to my skin.

I am not a super vain person , BUT...looking like this, not being able to wear an ounce of make-up, or lotion..is HARD for me.
In the past, I was able to hole up for a week or two, after the Family Reunions, or whatever I tended to over do at...but this week my kids had major practices for a show they were cast in.
This weekend I had reserved for a Yard Sale so we could fund a new swing set for my kids.

I had no "opt out button".

Me, with my nasty, swollen face, faced 100's of people today and joyfully took there money and thanked them...me with toad skin walked into the grocery for more Ice and Doughnuts for my kids to sell for tomorrow.

...and I talked to my kids about it all of the way. Verbalizing "THIS IS HARD FOR ME, I feel weird about how my face and body look, but I am doing it anyway.Now because my body needs it, I have to cleanse out the toxins and eat very clean food, now Mama is gong to have to take her rest when you all do so Mama's body can heal just like you take your rests for your brains."

and they shared too...what is HARD for them, what they see they need to be gentle with, what they see in them might need to be surrendered, and it was so very, very good....

Love,
Me, the no make-up, bumpy beautiful me.
P.S. Now you, go love on some of those bumpy/beautiful parts in you....