Fun through the pain

I decided this past week that I needed to have a little fun through the pain.  I was invited to three different things this past week.  Against better judgement, I decided that I would do all three things.  So this post is to remind myself that I can have a little fun throughout the pain.

•   On this upcoming Monday, a church is opening up a child care center.  My friend, Jamie, is going to be the director of the center and this past Monday she invited me to come to her open house and to go out to eat with her.  My responses to these kinds of things are generally "Thanks, but I just can't."  So my response to her was, "I think I can make that."  I wasn't sure if i would or not, but I really wanted to go to support my friend.  So I did.  I arrived good and early so that if I had to cut out early at least I had a chance to see Jamie.  I wound up staying the entire open house and going out to eat with a few of our mutual friends afterwards  I am so glad I did because it enabled me to "meet" a new person that was from my small little town.  I spoke about this happy accident on my post on Tuesday.  

• On several occasions, I have been invited to a fellow Lymie's house.  I really am not fond of going to other people's homes.  I generally can't make myself comfortable there so I avoid it at all costs.  I hate to ask certain questions to find out if I'll be comfortable (such as, "Does anyone in your home smoke?") at their home so am typically unpleasantly surprised when I walk into their home and it reeks of cigarettes.  Well this particular Lymie lives about 10 minutes from me and has invited me over several times.  So on Thursday, I decided to go over.  I stayed about 5 hours (which is a life time for me at someone else's home).  We talked a lot of Lyme Disease.  It was fun for her as she had never met in person anyone with Lyme.  

• Then on Monday morning, I received a text from my new neighbor inviting me over to come hang with "the ladies" on Friday night.  I simply replied that I may not be feeling up to it (which was true), but that I may pop in for a few minutes to say hello.  That would give me an easy out if I wasn't feeling well and an easy pop in and pop out excuse as well.  However, when I popped in -- I began to enjoy the company so much I pretty much stayed the whole time.  There were chairs for me to sit in, we gambled a bit - hey it wasn't my money and I won the fake game twice.  But when it came to the actual game where someone got to take the pot of money -- I lost.  I was runner up to the woman that never wins anything so that was fine.  Everyone had 5 dollars.  My neighbor supplied most of the dollar bills. There were three dice.  On each dice there was either a circle, star, the word LEFT or the word RIGHT.  If you had at least 3 dollars, you rolled all 3 dice.  Each dice told you what to do.  Circle meant you put a dollar in the middle.  LEFT meant pass to the person on your left.  RIGHT meant pass to the person on your right.  STAR meant you kept everything you had.  The winner of the money in the middle was the person who had the last dollar.  It was a simple game and cognitively I was able to play.  I was so thankful that there were no actual card games being played because my brain function wasn't there enough to play something more difficult than pass to the middle, left or right.  

 I knew that I might forget this fun week so I wanted to keep a journal of it so that later when I say I never have any fun at all that I would remember these three evenings of fun. It was also so very sweet all of all three ladies to remember me when they had something fun.  Honestly, most people don't even invite me places anymore because they know most of the time I can't go.  So it's nice to be remembered.