For many years, I held to a tradition every May 10th. I celebrated my grandfathers' birthdays (both born the same day) by baking a pecan pie. It was more aligned to my maternal grandfather, who had several pecan trees surrounding his house and out on the bottom land of his rural property, and who always brought pecan pies to every potluck he attended, but it was still a way to honor my ancestors. There was even a tie-in to my grandmother's history, as the recipe for that pie was created by the woman we considered an honorary grandparent, who thought of my grandmother as her own from the time grandma befriended her daughter in young adulthood. That recipe was a stroke of genius. The only version I've ever had that wasn't sickly sweet. But this year it's just me at the house, and I'm trying to cut down on my sugar intake, as well as still struggling with a grain-free pie crust that works. Maybe next year I'll revive the tradition, after a year off.
I have another reason to mark May 10th now. I've been as open as I can be about my recent lupus diagnosis, and how much of a struggle it has been to come to terms with my new reality. I keep seeing that this is "Lupus Awareness Month" and that today is "World Lupus Day." I don't know how much more I can do on this day than I have been doing for months to draw attention to what all of this means to me and to other people in this position, but I will try. I wore purple and talked about it openly to those people I interacted with today. I try to own it daily, and today was really no different. I probably glossed over a lot when I described it to a new friend who had never heard of it before (saying only a little more than "It affects everything," I was pretty vague.) I hope that the more I talk about it, without shame or reservation, it will help educate someone who needs to know, either for their own sake or for the sake of someone they love.
One specific I should probably focus on is stress. I've been under a great deal of stress lately, and I can feel how it is doing me no favors. It's having a ratcheting effect on me, incrementally winding me tighter with no hope of floating gently back to my baseline. I can feel it in my face, hands, and all over my skin. I don't know how far away a real flare is, but something is going to break loose at some point, probably soon. I'm not resting enough, I'm not unwinding enough, and I'm heading face-first down a slide that I can't slow down. Please understand that this space might be a lot of self-soothing pep talks aimed at myself for a while. I'm going to use it as one of those tools in my arsenal I mentioned a few weeks ago, as I try to reconcile myself to my new normal.
I got a digital postcard from my dogs' interstate walkabout a few days ago, that includes what I think needs to be my new motto: Sit, stay, heal. The dog talking to the butterfly. Thank you, Bump. You are mama's dog.
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