Lymedaze and Getting started. What's writing got to do with it?

It's going to help to know that at present I'm typing on a phone. Far from ideal. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a new iPad in hand. Oh, and I have Lyme disease.

I've read other blogs about Lyme disease, but up until now I never saw that as an avenue for me to take. I guess I either felt that others had more to share, or maybe I didn't realize that it was okay to share my little story. I mean, what's so interesting about my life after all? Well, a lot, I think.

I've decided that it will probably help me to have a place of my own where I can share my thoughts and feeling with others. This is that place. After a lot of searching I've realized that I have to create my own space. I've tried paper journals and even journaling on a support site, but this is different. I feel as though this more connects me to the outside world. At least that's part of my hope for this journal, though I have no particular expectations about this blog.

Living with chronic Lyme disease is the biggest thing I've ever done, other than loving others in general, trying to make some small difference in the lives of others, as well as raising my lovely, accomplished daughter. But I need a place to express all the feelings that go along with this baffling, cunning, and debilitating disease. These are the kinds of feelings that often don't know they're there, or reveal themselves even to the owner, until that person starts to write and their inner workings begin to crack open just a bit, and allow the writer a glimpse of what's actually going on inside. Actually, that's always what happens when I write and I'm supposing that this is true for others. Does your writing give birth to itself, right before your eyes?

I know that I'm not alone in all of this, though of course there are times when I feel deeply alone,  When I read another Lyme blog where the writer expresses something along the lines of having a rough few days or even weeks, I feel very much alone. My Lyme isn't like that, at least not yet. I don't have a bunch of supportive friends who understand. I have one amazing friend who really works to understand more than anyone else I know. I also know that my daughter does a lot more to try to understand and help than I will ever know. Sometimes the best help comes very quietly packaged.

But, I have this disease that had taken my life, as I once knew it, from me and landed me here tonight, awake, exhausted, and in a lot of pain. I took an Epsom salt bath and I suspect that the water was too hot and landed me here, flat on my back, thumbs popping away on a keyboard that isn't real and wondering where I go from here.

That's my start, for better or for worse. I hope to not only explore my own world, but to look into others and in the process help both myself and the friends that I've yet to meet.

Oh, and I'm about to be living alone again and I definitely need a dog. (Shhh! don't tell my cat, but I really do!)