My Friends Are Better Than Yours

I really have the most amazing friends.  And if you're friends with me in REALITY, so do you, because we probably share the same friends.  If you only stalk me from your computer, you must now also deal with the realization that ours friends are sub-par.  Sorry.

Do you remember The Spoon Theory, by Christine Miserandino?  The one that describes how people with invisible illnesses (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, PTSD, Chronic Lyme, lupus, etc.) have a limited number of "stores of energy" with which to live life?  If not, go check it out.  I'll wait.

Took you long enough.

Anyways---something about that story really resonated with me, when I was struggling with my diagnoses and had a hard time describing it to people.  I was ahead of the game, by knowing that many people could not relate.  All they knew was that a person with superhuman energy was all of a sudden a couch lump.  I couldn't even describe it myself. But Christine helped me, and I shared it with others. I'd like to think that I helped "The Spoon Theory" go viral.  I don't know if it has, and it certainly would not have been my influence, but like I said, I'd like to think so. In the same way I'd like to have a pet monkey--super awesome, but more of a fantastical fantasy rather than something seated in some semblance of reality.

Where was I?

Oh, spoons.  I like spoons.  And not just because of their obvious connection to ice cream, although that helps.

Spoons to me represent the ever-changing reality of my health-spoons are a tangible reminder that my life has flip turned upside down (thank you, Fresh Prince) and that each day brings a new set of challenges.  I can say, "damn, spoons all gone.  What's on Lifetime?" or "look!  I found an extra spoon! Let's hit the buffet!" or even, "I better save some spoons for the her wedding this weekend, so I can stay up later than the ring bearer".

Because I am so creative and funny, I have inside jokes.  Even some inside jokes with myself-I'm that awesome. For instance, some mornings I wake up and I'm all, "shit.  Out of spoons already? How can that be?  I better put my superhero spoon ring on..." and then I smile at me.  And all day long when I feel like I'm about to drop, I look down at my spoon ring and I smile.  I still drop, but I and me share a moment.

Many friends have begun to understand my "thing" with spoons--they have seen my Pinterest Board, "Spoons that are Bad-Ass", and they "get" my obsession with all things spoon.

So when some friends came by for Princess' party and brought a gift, I was dumbfounded-they had helped me move, offered to take Princess off my hands during parts of the move, put together horrifically strange IKEA contraptions for my children to sleep on, AND had left before the requisite pizza-and-beer payday. Truly amazing friends.

Then they go and bring this:

They made it.  They didn't find it at some strange spoon crafts expo.  They made it.  For me.  :::tear, sniffle:::


Here is the detail of the top, which they inscribed with a quote:

"May you be blessed today with all you need! May there always be extra! May you never run out!"

I hung it had Sky King hang it immediately, and it makes the most beautiful sounds.



I can send you their info if you need better friends. PM me.