Flare & Flourish

Friday arrives like a soft knock instead of a loud alarm. No rushing. No demanding. Just a gentle hey… you made it. Fibromyalgia doesn’t care what day it is—but Fridays feel different anyway. Fridays have permission baked into them. Permission to move slower. Permission to cancel plans without guilt. Permission to rest and still call it a win. This morning, my body wakes up before I do. A familiar chorus: stiff shoulders humming, hips whispering complaints, nerves buzzing like they drank coffee without me. Fibromyalgia has its own playlist, and today it’s a remix—unpredictable but not unmanageable. So I negotiate. We stretch before we stand. We breathe before we think. We choose softness first. Friday Fibro Fun isn’t about pretending pain doesn’t exist. It’s about finding joy around it—like sunlight slipping through blinds even when the room is messy. I make tea. The good kind. I wrap myself in the coziest thing I own and let my muscles unclench one by one, like they’re exhaling secret...

  Depression Had Other Plans Let’s clear something up: I don’t enjoy being sad. I don’t thrive in darkness. I want daylight. I want peace. I want my brain to calm down for five minutes without starting a full emotional TED Talk. I used to think healing was black or white. You’re broken, then you’re fixed. Turns out depression lives in the gray and brings a suitcase. Taylor Swift’s Daylight feels familiar because it isn’t pretending everything magically gets better. It’s about learning to see light after believing darkness was all there was. When depression creeps in, people love to say, “Just shake it off.” I’ve tried. I shook. Depression stayed. What actually helps? Time. Patience. Faith. Honest conversations with my husband or friends who are still standing next to me when things get heavy. Healing work that’s slow, uncomfortable, and not Instagram-worthy. Depression can knock you down. But you don’t have to knock it out in one round. Sometimes winning looks like getting out of b...

   Am Not Losing Weight, I Am Losing Pieces of Myself Fibromyalgia and losing weight is not a glow up. It is not discipline. It is not a secret routine I want to share. People catch me on my best days. The days where my face doesn’t show the war. They say, “You look so good, what are you doing?” And I swallow the truth and answer, “I’m trying my best.” What I don’t say is that my nights are loud with pain. That sleep slips through my fingers while my joints scream. That some mornings my body feels like it belongs to someone twice my age and someone else entirely. They know my diagnosis. They know my symptoms. And still, they expect more of me. As if knowing cancels out suffering. As if invisible pain should still perform. In less than three months, my body disappeared in ways I never asked for. The scale became an enemy, a reminder that sickness is applauded when it looks like thinness. I would choose soft and healthy over skinny and sick every time. But healthy people don’t u...

  How I Pace My Life Without Losing Joy My body has a smaller battery than the world expects. Some days it drains before morning coffee. Some days pain arrives like weather, uninvited and unavoidable. Pacing wasn’t something I chose. It was something my body demanded. At first, pacing felt like grief. Like folding my dreams into smaller shapes. Like watching the version of me who could do everything walk away without looking back. I used to push. Through pain. Through fatigue. Through the quiet voice in my body begging me to stop. Fibromyalgia taught me the cost of that silence. Now, I move slower. Not because I’ve given up, but because I’ve learned what it takes to stay. I plan my days gently. One thing at a time. Space between moments. Room for rest before the crash, not after. I listen for the early signals. The heaviness in my limbs. The fog creeping into my thoughts. The ache that says, this is your warning. Stopping before I’m forced to feel like self-respect. Joy didn’t disa...

 I wasn’t gold, wasn’t glitter, wasn’t shine Just a name they used when the stars aligned But I got sick, and silence hit the line They ghosted like guilt they didn’t wanna find Pale light from my hospital bed No texts back, just echoes in my head They said “Always,” But they meant: “Only when it’s easy.” All those girls in my mirror frame They posed for the light, disappeared in the rain I bled for them, they ran from pain And I still hear them spell my name— But they vanished When I was cracked and breaking Love was just a word for faking They vanished Left me on read, like I was contagious Turns out friendship’s so courageous ’Til it costs something ’Til it stings ’Til I need Real things They posted prayers but never called Burned me down and blamed the fall One by one they closed the door Guess sick girls aren’t trending anymore They sold “support” like a souvenir Gave applause when the coast was clear I was too much — or maybe too real But I know now what truth reveals— Yeah, ...

  A Body That Collapses,A Spirit That Refuse To Well… let the games begin. Do you ever feel like a Lego tower? Perfectly built. Carefully stacked. Standing tall. And then—out of nowhere—every single piece falls apart. That’s fibromyalgia for me. That’s how I explain it to my specialist. She’s brilliant—full of ideas, curious, and thankfully not a fan of unnecessary surgeries. I’m deeply grateful for that, because anesthesia and I? We are not friends. Let me explain. During a biopsy with a previous specialist, I was awake. Not “kind of awake.” Wide awake. An hour and thirty minutes awake. I felt everything. I heard everything. “Give her more anesthesia.” “She needs oxygen.” “We need to stabilize her vitals.” I lay there, stitched, listening, feeling, thinking: Well… this is happening. That experience changed everything. After that, I chose my own medical team—doctors who listen, who believe me, who understand that my body doesn’t follow the rules in the textbook. Now back to the Leg...

Why Bones and Joints Can Hurt Fibromyalgia affects the whole body, not just one part. It is often called a pain condition, but fibromyalgia is actually linked to how the nervous system works. The nerves, muscles, and bones are all connected, and when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed, the entire body feels it. Muscles are often the first place people notice symptoms. Many people with fibromyalgia feel muscle pain, tightness, or weakness, even without physical strain. This happens because the nervous system sends ongoing pain signals to the muscles. The muscles stay tense for long periods of time, making them feel sore and tired. This is why even simple tasks can feel exhausting. The nerves play a major role. In fibromyalgia, the nervous system becomes extra sensitive. This means pain signals are stronger than they should be. Touch, pressure, temperature changes, or gentle movement can hurt more than expected. The nerves are not damaged, but they are overactive and constantly alert...

  My Nervous System With Fibromyalgia Living with fibromyalgia means my nervous system is always “on.” There is no off switch. No quiet mode. Just constant signals firing even when nothing around me is actually dangerous. When my body gets stressed for too long, everything changes. Sleep becomes impossible. My body is exhausted, but my nervous system refuses to rest. My muscles are tired, my mind is tired, yet I lie there feeling wired, alert, uncomfortable. Rest doesn’t feel like resting anymore. It feels like waiting. My appetite disappears. Not because I don’t want food, but because stress shuts my body down. When the nervous system is overwhelmed, it focuses on survival, not hunger. Eating becomes hard. Even thinking about food can feel like too much. Emotionally, I become overwhelmed. Small things feel big. Sounds are louder. Feelings hit deeper. I can cry easily, get irritated quickly, or feel completely numb. None of this is a choice. It’s my body reacting to being overloade...

Change is supposed to be beautiful That’s what people say. A doorway. A glow-up. A fresh start. But when I listen to Taylor Swift’s “Change,” I don’t just hear hope—I hear the quiet fear underneath it. The part no one talks about. The part that made me stop and think about myself. Because I don’t like change. I don’t like when food tastes different than it did yesterday. I don’t like new clothes that don’t feel like me yet. I don’t like shoes that haven’t learned the shape of my feet. I don’t like new environments where the air feels unfamiliar. I don’t like changes in medication that make my body feel like a stranger. I don’t like the feeling of being unprepared. Change feels loud to me, even when it’s small. It interrupts routines that took time to build. It asks me to trust something I don’t understand yet. It shows up uninvited and expects me to adapt immediately, as if comfort is something easily replaceable. What the song made me realize is that change isn’t always about exciteme...

Where the Year Begins Again At midnight, time exhales its breath, A silver pause between the beats. The old year loosens what it kept, Lays down its weight at tired feet. We stand with pockets full of moments— Some gold, some cracked, some barely whole, Yet still they shine with quiet proof Of how we lived, of how we grew. The future doesn’t knock or shout, It opens like a waiting door, Asking only for our courage, Not perfection—nothing more. So light the sky with small intentions, Let hope arrive without a map. The year begins not with a promise, But with a brave, becoming step. Here’s to mornings yet unnamed, To growth that comes in unseen ways, To choosing wonder over fear— Welcome, new and waiting days. https://x.com/FlareflourishF