I whisper I need a new crayon

The husband and I were invited out to the boss' home for dinner. Seems his new girlfriend is preparing a meal of delicious things to eat. It is to be a spaghetti dinner straight from the avenues of Sicily. Sauce simmered for hours with the tastiest ingredients, a secret family dressing to marinate the vegies in a traditional salad, and caponata with crunchy crackers. A feast of the senses. Me. The one gluten intolerant and reactive to foods. I don't want to be sick or offend, what am I to do?

My husband stepped in, funny how he didn't do any of this when we went camping with his parents, and spoke for me. The girlfriend was ever so generous and prepared a spaghetti squash instead of wheat pasta (she even purchased rice spaghetti if that were my choice). My mouth waters with the remembrance of that squash and meaty sauce. She even bought me rice crackers for the hors’d’oeuvres. I had no immediate food reaction. None of that instant nausea when wheat or it's many derivatives hits the stomach, but today the fibromyalgia is knocking on the door.

To 'be nice' I did eat foods I knew I was going to react to. How could I not eat her lovely red sauce on the spaghetti squash even though it has pork in it? I don't want to be the Spanish inquisitor for every dish being served. I live in a world that is so very different from the norm. I often feel like a bubble girl. I can see out and my world is wide and spacious with a thin protective barrier surrounding me. When others look in they just see isolation with cramped borders. It is that thin protective layer that causes the misunderstanding.

My husband did not understand that it is two hours past my bedtime, a bedtime dictated not by need for sleep, but by the need to be asleep before the pain begins, and my husband is still visiting and the burning ache is in my legs, and the hips are screaming 'enough', and I am missing snippets of conversation because the words are drowned out by twinges, I can't focus on anything else and I want to be home so I can privately moan when it is too intense, to change gravity by stretching on the bed that makes my nighttime bearable.

Wishing so very much to be 'normal' and just be in the moment. A moment not crayoned in the silver of pain.