100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 56

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns
Lunch:  Taco Taco, small burrito, two crunchy tacos, huge soda
Dinner:  Crappy, limp salad, a couple of spoons/tastes of some truly heinous clam chowder, some oyster crackers and three lemon wedges
Snack:  The better part of a pound of cherries on the way home from my crappy day, some Kruncher chips

Breakfast with my friends, great coffee, lousy and surly service.  What the hell is wrong with people?  Seriously, the world seems to be full of seriously cranky people, which is somewhat comforting because I can be very cranky and cranked-up, although I keep it to myself, well, most of the time. 

I ate out three times today and accept how messed-up that is.  The lunch one was a place where you are not allowed to give tips, and the counter guy there left his counter during a lull and went around asking everyone if their food was O.K., and if they needed anything, which is totally not the kind of sweet service one would expect in such a humble place, but there it was and the guy was so nice.  When I had ordered and paid for my food, I saw a sign for a lemonade drink that had fruit, as in actual fruit and juice, in it and asked if it had been sweetened, and when the counter guy confirmed that, I mentioned that it looked really great, but that I had to avoid sugar and his reply was, "Well, in that case, just to help you feel better, that stuff is nasty, nasty, nasty!"  He referenced it again when he wandered by to ask if we needed anything.  Such a nice touch.  It happened again later at the drug store when a young guy came up to me and asked if he could help me find anything, which he could and which he did, telling me a couple of cool stories about rock climbing in the process of being super-duper helpful. 

The world is full of nice people like that, which makes the perpetual corps of doofuses (or, is it doofi?) just that much more noticeable.  Dinner with the friend that needs hauling everywhere had the same kind of person.  Sad service and really bad soup.  And, you know, when it comes to receiving service, I am a very low maintenance diner/customer/client/ordinary person.  I never send stuff back when dining.  I am a good consumer so that I never, ever, ever have to return anything to a store.  I do not request any kind of special attention and just go with the flow as much as possible so as to avoid even the merest suggestion of any problem.  I am just as non-confrontational in public as I am in the more private parts of my life.  That makes me sound like a doormat, and I guess that I mostly am that.

Whatever.  You know, I get to where I can stand up and then it just drifts away, that feeling that I have the ability and self-responsibility to do it.  Just...drifts...away...poof...there it goes.

And, it is not helping that I was clearing out some of the junk that I never revisit from my computer files and stumbled into the writings of a friend who lost her son a few years ago.  I read and then went back in time and read from the beginning of that loss, the tragedy and pain of losing that lovely boy.  Then, I was no longer weeping for my own losses and problems, but for the absence of that sweet and wonderful boy and all of the people and places and things that we no longer have in our lives, individually and collectively, all that stuff that makes life worth the struggle, at least it did before it came up missing. 

I know that my sorrow is not unique, at least in the larger aspect of a life, mine, yours, the lives of everyone.   You know that saying about how happy families are alike in their happiness, but unhappy families are unique in their unhappiness.  Yeah, like that.  But, even though our individual pain is specific to the qualities and experiences of each of our lives, the entirety of sadness connects us because we all feel loss and sorrow and pain pretty much the same, as only human bodies and minds and hearts can...that is what connects us.

So, my friend's pain at losing her son is sort of my pain, too, because I knew and loved him in my own way, but it mirrors all of the suffering of my own life.  I feel the same qualities of pain for her loss as I do for my own. 

It is like this stupid visual disorder that I have and that other people, not many, but more than enough, have and when someone reads about what another person's symptoms are like and how it fucks up their life, someone else might say that they really do not have anything to complain about because they view their own symptoms as being less somehow, and that is total bullshit.  The difficulty each person has is equal in significance to that of another person and to compare them is pointless.  We all suffer at our own level of discomfort, pain.  And, it is, it is how we are connected.  

So, I am feeling sad about all of this stuff again, and instead of trying to get rid of it, I think that I might want to, might actually honor it a bit tonight.  I do not intend to wallow, but I am going to allow myself to feel it as fully as possible, immerse myself in the experience, re-experience it as completely as I can, acknowledge it and then let it pass through me, fall away from my physical body and into the earth, my planet, our Mother, where it can be honored and transformed into something good, something wonderful, something life-affirming.  I can do that.

I did not draw this GP, but I did pay for it in a collection of clip art and it (and the slight alteration I made to it) perfectly suits my general lack of understanding and intelligence today.  Yep.  It does.  But, I can transcend it, yes? 

Yes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 50

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Nothing
Dinner:  Nothing, yet

So, anyway, Dear Diary, I have been feeling so good about just everything.  A life is not static.  Stuff happens.  Uncertainty is the one thing of which you can be certain, especially if you are going to do more than stay home in your little cave and not be involved in anything.  Oh, lordy, does stuff happen.  You know, I would not have it any other way.  Really.

A lot of days without serious problems, except for the usual ones around here.  I went to the fruit festival yesterday and it was great and then today happened.  It is not worth writing about here, but it was pretty terrible and it was made clear that it was, not exactly punishment for having a life, but sort of like the consequences of doing things that someone does not want me to do.  I kind of crumbled into pieces earlier, but am better now. 

I was trying so hard to make this work here and praying about it and asking for some way to resolves some of the stuff.  Well, you often get exactly what you ask for and that manifested early this morning.  It is just that I was unprepared for how it happened, as in caught completely off-guard.  You know, just when you think that being a good person, doing all of the right things for the right reasons, that all of that love and support will come back to you in some measure, it does not.  Well, that is the way it goes.  I should not ever be surprised, but I am.  Over and over. 

Once I recovered from the shock, I was fine.  I will be better, but, gosh, I do not think that I will ever get used to this and that I will always be stunned when it happens again.  The deliberate cruelty is, what, a new heartbreak every single time.  I have had hours to think about this and, whilst I am sort of, kind of all right with being a person who can still have the whole breaking of the heart thing, it would be fine with me if it never happened again.

I will be gone for three days this week, which will only make things worse, big-picture-wise, but it is too late to do anything about that.  I am going to think of it as the calm before the storm and enjoy as much of it as I can.  I need the time away to make some plans, figure out what to do, stay sane.  You know, like that.

It is interesting, though, that I am sort of, kind of back to feeling good.  The bad stuff is really only beginning, but I was, am, able to bounce back even though this sadness will be with me for a while I am guessing.  At some point, I am just going to have to accept that maybe what the heart wants is not what is best.  I am resisting that.  I have to, if only to know for certain that I did everything possible to make this work.  It is all so sad. 

But, I am strong, and strong in a way that I have not been for a long time.  Maybe I never had this kind of strength before.  It feels new, so perhaps that is true.  Anyway, nothing here is going to destroy me, not the stuff that happens, not the made-up stories, not the misunderstanding from others, none of it.  I have this crazy feeling that I do not have any responsibility to defend myself against any of the stories and the consequences of stories being told.  I know, Diary, that I am being obtuse, but I am doing that a lot lately.  Even writing this to myself in this manner seems like a defense, but I am hoping that it is not.  If I cannot be seen for who I am, then, well, so be it.  Hell, I do that for other people, they can do it for me, dammit!

Anyway, I am still not hungry, but might have some ice cream and go to bed early.  I have some serious divesting to do tomorrow.

And, bloody hell, I still feel good.  Man.

As for GP, the hearts are feeling as though they are part of the sadness, so I am off to make something more cheerful.  Be right back.
Alrighty, here goes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 44

Breakfast:  Lean Cuisine dinner, pecan chicken something, I think
Lunch:  3 natural hot dogs, mustard, canned beets
Dinner:  Cashews, 2 crackers with peanut butter on them

I spent today using as few calories as possible.  Both of my legs hurt from all of the walking this weekend.  Swollen and sore, joints and muscles.  So, it seemed to be a good idea to not eat very much.  I am not counting calories, but I have done so for most of my adult life, and I estimate that there were somewhere around 900 of them in today's foods.  That seems close enough.  I could check, but then I would have to use some of those calories to haul myself out of this chair and go look.  Rats.  I just checked and it was 1150 calories.  Too many to even think about having lost any tonnage.  Even though that, the weight, is not supposed to be my focus, it is disheartening to find that today was most likely, at best (a hopeful best), a draw in the in and out department.  F.  (I am trying to not curse.)

Tomorrow is not going to help any.  It is a day of volunteering for the big city near me.  It is part of their summer employment training program for young people.  We did all of the interviewing weeks ago and their training began today with a week's worth of orientation.  I have not any idea what they did today, but tomorrow is like a job fair, if you know what is.  Each of the tables/stations will not be hosted by potential employers, but with information and help related to finances, how to choose a job category (like that is even possible these days, but bless their hearts for building the concept into the program), and all of the expenses that are part of living.  Housing, health care/insurance, vehicles, clothing, household expenses, families, pets, the whole works.  They will have to set up an actual savings and checking accounts with representatives of a local credit union (like a bank), do the paperwork for a 401k account and a lot more.  It should be interesting, especially since they did not notify the volunteers that they were chosen to participate (that would be me and other hapless souls), and aside from arriving a half hour before the participants, there does not seem to be any training that I can tell. 

They are going to give us a light breakfast, whatever the hell that means.  My guess is that it will be coffee and donuts.  My guess is that I will try to get up extra early and make some eggs, or that I will dilly-dally and have to drive-through for some more of those yummy breakfast sandwiches and a big, steaming cup of fairly decent coffee.  Honestly, tomorrow is laundry day, so it is more important to get a load running before I leave home.  There is a lunch offering, but I am guessing that it is more of the same sub sandwiches, chips, cookies, canned soft drinks and other snack things.  So, I will probably be skipping that as well and getting one of those great salads from Wendy's.  I hate to miss that part, though, because sitting around with the other volunteers is a great resource opportunity for me.  Those people are all professionals and I have much to learn from them that could help me with my clients. 

It really is a surreal experience.  There they all are, HR people, executives, radio personalities, and then there is me.  The same thing used to happen to me when I was part of the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program in the elementary schools in another big city near me.  Doctors, lawyers, police officers, bank officials, veterinarians, businessmen of all kinds.  Then, me.  I am hoping it means that they keep asking me to do these things because they believe that I have something to offer, but it is very humbling to be in the company of such important people.

I should have enough time to come home, toss in more laundry, maybe heat up another of those frozen diet meals and get going to pick up one of my women, who has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  Then home again, to shower, wash hair and do one last load of linens, since I am nearly out of clean towels.

On a more personal note, something sad happened today.  The woman who owns the gallery has been expecting some important mail and was not certain if it would come to her place here or the one in another state, which is where she is now.  Something did come last week, and I called her to let her know that it was there and had to leave a message on her voice mail. 

I hate voice mail.  You never know if someone is going to check or if it actually will be there when they do check or some damn thing.  I do not have it, so I always figure that no news is good news, which in my life is pretty much the case.  But, she does have it and she was concerned and I called and left a message.  She did not call back, even though I left my phone on until after midnight.  She knew that I was out of town, but did not call in to ask for more information, which, frankly, I would not have had because I did not open the mail.

This afternoon I heard my phone beeping and when I checked, there were two messages.  Apparently, my friend was not able to reach anyone who could check on the darn mail (there are four of us) and was frantic worrying about what it was.  So, being the good boyfriend that he is, her boyfriend (I digress, but I love that us older babes can still have boyfriends and actually call them that.) called my cell phone and left a stunning message about how upset she was and then made a couple of mild threats.  Yeah, stunning.  I was guessing that the second message was also from him, adding the few things he might have missed saying in the first message, but it was from my friend, who assured me that I had done the right thing and not to worry.  This was later followed by another call from her, where she raged about all kinds of things and the bottom line is that I was the recipient of a whole bunch of frustration about a whole bunch of things. 

I think I have to be finished there, at the gallery.  I am not looking forward to seeing her boyfriend again, although I will miss seeing her.  I have Thursday off and think that I might take the morning to gather my work and leave my keys there.  She is in another state and I am the only person who keeps the gallery open during the week, so I will not risk running into anyone.  This is all too complicated and today was kind of scary.  No, it was a lot scary and I have enough to deal with in my own life, without taking on the pathology of another relationship. 

I am really going to miss going there.  I like welcoming people and talking about the art there and just art in general.  I like having my stuff there and having people like it and sometimes buy some of it.  Yeah, that extra money is nice.  It paid for most of my traveling.  I will miss the other artists and the, gosh, so wonderful discussions we have, and the musicians that drop by to play and I will even miss the street people who stop in to chat a while.  I am going to miss all of it so much.  Even on slow days, there is hardly a more lovely place to sit and knit or read or just sit.  I can still do art stuff, and I still exhibit other places, but this place, this gallery, was special.  It still is special, it is just that I will no longer be a part of it.

Well, you cannot have everything, but it was a little piece of heaven in contrast to much of the rest of my life.  Everything comes to an end of some sort and I have to allow myself to experience this break and be patient for the next thing that might come along.  You know, if I were still busy with the gallery, I might miss that next thing or things.  So, in the end, big picture and all, it is a good thing.  Sad, but ultimately good.  I hope.

So, aside from the food issue, not a bad day.  Well, I guess it sort of was, but I am not going to dwell on it.

What's left?  Ah, GP.  I have a bunch of hearts in the guilty pleasure realm and after the happenings of the past couple of weeks, I need all the hearts I can get, so that is what it will be for the next week or so.  Hearts.  Some of them are on the dark side, but I guess that is appropriate, as well.

What the hell happened to being all light and happy about this?  You know, my intent was to stop complaining all the damn time, but I seem to be stuck on the pain and not able to concentrate on the gain, gaining of better health and a more healthy attitude and outlook.  That is/was my goal, if I actually had goals, I mean.  I kind of suck, yes?  Yes, I do.  I am sorry, I do not mean to be so sucky.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 30

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  A frozen low-calorie dinner thing, chicken (I think it was chicken, hard to tell), rice, carrot shreds, peas and some lemony or lemon-like sauce
Dinner:  Two hot dogs, buns, brown mustard, jalapeno, dill pickle slices, cherries

I was surprised to not be hungry this morning, given the single glass of wine that I had for dinner.  I guess the bacchanalia that was lunch kept me going.  Granted, lunch yesterday was all pretty healthy, and not huge portions, but there was a stunning variety of smaller bits of this and that.  Still, skipping breakfast is not a good idea.   The frozen thing for lunch was a left-over from when I was buying only frozen things because I was so disgusted about wasting so much food.

Speaking of which, I bought only two smoked pork chops last week and still tossed one of them, along with some cauliflower, iceberg, and a half each of onion and zucchini.  Man.

So, now that a month has passed, I am wondering what healthy eating, as in life-long food is going to be.

I am thinking about adding a couple of foods to my regular schedule.  Well, it is not exactly a schedule, but I am trying so very hard to not use the word diet, you know?

Anyway, I am thinking about the following foods.

Hard cooked eggs - You can eat them on the run, they travel well, they are cheap and, most importantly, I like them.  It may be that I like them too much, which is why I have started to cook them several times and just stopped myself.  Since this is partly about learning new portion control stuff, I should at least give them a try.  If it turns out that I eat all six at a single sitting  (And, that could really happen), then this is probably not such a good idea.  But, I should at least try it.  It would be great for the long days at work when I have not given any advance thought to what to take for lunch.

Nuts - I like nuts, all nuts, especially those that are high in fat, like macadamia and pine.  If I stick to walnuts, almonds and peanuts, I should be fine.  They are also good travelers and keep well.  Not cheap, though.  I always take them along on trips, but never really thought about daily or occasional use here at home.


Nut butters - I have been looking for those individual portion size packs of peanut butter, but despite assurances that they are on the next truck, they never seem to be on the shelf at the two markets where I usually shop.  I have a 35 year old Salton peanut butter machine around here, somewhere.  It is a stunningly simple machine.  Just a plastic housing for an electric powered grinder.  Easy to use, easy to clean, just need to find it and buy nuts and grind them and find tiny containers in which to put the butters and then remember to make some whole grain crackers and then actually take them along with me.  Should be a snap.

Chickpeas - Now, you cannot eat the dried ones, nor can you eat them right out of the can (shudder), but you can drain the canned ones, toss them with spices like turmeric, chili powder, garlic powder, spicy paprika, salt, pepper, or any combination, spread out on a pan and roast them until they get dry and a little crispy on the outsides.  They do not keep long, about a week in the refrigerator, but they are cheap and easy to tote around. 

Looking at that list, it is all about the protein, which is good, because protein-rich foods are excellent for the whole diabetes thing.  I am digressing, but I just ordered refills on the three meds I take, and the diabetes med is the only one that did not triple in price.  One of them is now more than $150 per refill.  Yikes!

So, anyway, I still almost always have crispy apples in the house for taking along.  Sometimes a bell pepper or two.  I just planted two tomato plants last night.  A Roma and a Black Krim.  The rhubarb is doing very well, especially since it has not yet been trampled this year.  I am going to try to sneak in some bell pepper and chili plants in between the bushes at the front of the house and maybe some green beans where the magic iris grow.  Those things will help with easy to grab and eat foods, as well.  

I will have to use Google to find more to help diversify what I am eating.  I am kind of wondering if my recent fails have something to do with not enough variety.  The only problem with variety is waste.  Just trading one issue for another.

I have pretty much given up on Weight Watchers.  By the time I figured out what I was going to do, I had lost interest.  I suspect that I might still give it a try, but not likely until this project is over.  I know that I could benefit from some kind of structure and guidance.  It is just that they are so disorganized over there, no one person seems to know about all of the financial stuff and I have had to cobble the stuff together for myself.  That said, I still think that I would find something helpful within a group dynamic of some kind, but I need to find some people who are less messed up than I am.  Should be a snap.  Ack.

What else.  I think that I have a solution for the lunch-going-out-for-problems with my ss friend.  I am going to propose that we alternate choosing a place to eat each time we get together.  I never really got into the problems we encounter each time I take her somewhere, but this should be a good solution for that problem.  This one should not be a snap, but it might be forward movement, especially if I intentionally choose places that she would not like to go.

Then, there would not be the whole changing her mind issue on the drive to wherever she initially chose, which, in actuality, turns into the drive to hell and no place in particular.  It is mean of me to do it this way, but every other way, advance planning, menus, letting her always choose, discussing, discussing and discussing it...until I just want to grab a fork and stab myself...might become a distant and less-heartbreaking memory.  I am willing to be mean in the desire to hold on to the remaining shreds of my sanity.

O.K., I just reread this next part and I have no idea where it came from or what it is doing in my head.  It is like this overwhelming heaviness just dropped down on me and brought a whole shitload of sadness with it.  So, I am going to make it really tiny so that no one reads it.  I would delete it, but it seems to be needing expression, you know?  For any hapless person who stumbles on this, just ignore me.  Ahhh, better.  You know, I am really not such a downer person.  Really.  It is true.  I swear.


One last thing is safe to share here because I am the only person who ever comes here and reads this dreck.  I mean, I wish that I could say even a bit of this to my friends, but, honestly, no one wants you to ever change or to share this sort of thing.  They just do not want to hear it.  Ever.
I am sorry for no longer being the person that you want me to be.  It is too difficult to always be the girl in who's world it is always high noon, the sun is always shining, the birds are singing and the unicorns are eating wildflowers and pooping rainbows.  It is too hard.  
It is also too hard to be the person that makes everyone laugh, soothes hurt or injured feelings and mediates between the rest of you.  I am not Switzerland.  I cannot do it anymore.  Well, maybe I can once in a while, but I cannot be that ray of eternal bliss and bandages that makes everything nice.  Not anymore.  You can want it, but I am no longer able to do it.
The truth is that I am sad, sad about a lot of things.  I might even be in a medium or serious depression.  There are parts of my life that are totally not wonderful.  My sadness is legitimate.  You are not the only ones who get to share the crap about your lives.  I am not the only method of transportation for those of you who have chosen to not spend your money on cars or bus passes or taxicabs, preferring to use that money for travel, fancy restaurants and travel.  
And, you, you in particular, if I have to listen to you tell me how much money you have saved over the past forty years by not having a car, whilst I am driving you all over the kingdom so that you can do your errands in the city where you live, which is a forty-five minute drive from the city where I live, and doing it on my day off, well, I do not know what I might do, but it certainly would not be driving you all over the damn place.
I am not anyone's ray of sunshine,  I am a busy person who has problems of my own, but you do not want to hear that, preferring only smiles, jokes and happy stories, and I understand that you have come to expect that from me. 
I have pulled back from a relatively significant number of my volunteer jobs.  I am not calling or calling on most of you, even my family, been staying home a lot, trying to be well or at least the kinds of not-well that I have been for months now.  I have cleared the decks, so to speak, and am coming back a bit. 
It is just that I am coming back as a bit of a different person.  You might not like me as much; I am not so happy-go-lucky and carefree.  But, I like myself better this way, I think I do, I think I could.  And, I am not sure where this came from all of a sudden.  Whatever.  So be it.

I do have a GP, but it is kind of weird.  It was supposed to be another coffee thing, but something happened.

Not just weird, kind of creepy, too.  Wonder what it is saying about my internal process

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 29

Breakfast:  Eggs, 4 strips of pre-cooked bacon (yes, I am lazy on top of everything else), 4 squared of chocolate
Lunch: A lot of wonderful food, but slightly too much of it, at one of those really good buffet places.
Dinner:  Glass of red wine to help wash down the shame of lunch

I am doing this differently today.  Since I am not doing anything useful, I thought that I would write this in segments, as drafts are allowed here.  That is one of the things I most like about Google.  Whatever the product, you can always save in draft form.

So, anyway, I am just about to get ready to take one of my ss women to lunch.  I have limited these excursions to three hours, but she drags them out for at least an additional hour, which is still much better than the usual six to twelve hours she prefers.  I feel exceptionally mean about making these time restrictions.  She has only one other friend.  That friend is often cross and impatient with her, but if you have only just the two friends and one of them (me) has other things scheduled during the week, the one that is left is still your only other friend.

Now, with this time thing, I am going to be one of her cross and impatient friends, too, I guess.  I do not want to be that kind of friend.  It sucks to be that kind of friend.  But, I have to be, otherwise I would never have any time for myself.  This friend, today's friend, would prefer that I pick her up and take her places two or three times a week, not for appointments or anything, but just for social contact.  If I were not responsible for three other people just like her, I might be willing to do that.  But, I cannot, I simply cannot do all of that.  I can squeeze three such visits/trips into a week, but they cannot be all for one person.

Besides, none of the four people for whom I do this is willing to just go to the park and sit or take a lunch from home.  They are not interested in going to a mall or some other public place and just sitting and talking.  They all want to eat out and go shopping.  They can afford it, I cannot.  What they cannot do is to drive themselves.  For that they need me.  Well, I hope that they need and want me for more than that, but the truth is that I am not sure that it is for anything more than the driving aspect.  Even if that is so, I can still do this with one of them during the week.  Whilst I can often manage to avoid spending anything when they shop, it is nearly impossible to avoid having to fork out money at a restaurant, and it is absolutely impossible for me to take food from home along.  I try to eat before I leave to fetch them so that I will not arrive someplace and be ravenous, and then find the least expensive thing on the menu, but it still adds up.

I have no idea where she wants to go today.  She want to surprise me.  Yeah, she is sweet like that and looks to make these outings fun for me, too.  She buys a coupon book every year from some non-profit organization and likes to use those things to try new restaurants.  One of them, last month, was a hour and a half drive away, but it turned out to be one of the best places we have ever been.

Off to have fun!

It is official.  I totally suck at having a backbone.  I do and it is time that I just gave in and admitted it.  No freaking backbone, and to illustrate how that is, today's three hour lunch just ended at seven and a half hours.  It included a trip to a medium box store, where I found heirloom Roma tomatoes and a Black Krim.  Both are strong and sturdy and double-stemmed plants and are in the ground and awaiting a nice, deep watering in the morning.  Yeah, even people without backbones know not to water this close to nighttime.

As for the three hour limit on taking someone out, I really do give up.  I will save it for the times when I really cannot afford a minute more, as well as limiting these excursions to once every other week. 

So, I am wondering what the friendship of some of the people in my life means and where those relationships are going, if they are going anywhere.  The one who screwed me over is pretty much history.  We will still have to see each other at the gallery, but the connection is severed, at least on my end.  Frankly, if he could treat me like he did, there never existed any kind of relationship between us.  All in all, no loss for him and only some residual sadness for me.

And, today's friend, the older woman that I take places, well, what is that all about anyway.  I have to decided if I really am her friend and how I am going to accept who she is and just get the hell over myself.  I can do that.

Today's GP is an angel, just in case you cannot figure out what it is.

Yes, this really is an angel!

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 28

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon
Lunch:  Roast beef, green beans, fudge frozen thing, 2 squares of a Lindt bar
Dinner:  Roast beef, brussels sprouts

Back on track, I guess.  Last night's bout with frantic and emotional eating in response to sad stuff was significant enough to cause me to be bloated today and I cannot tell if my face is fatter or just filled with guilt-fluids or something.  Tomorrow is lunch out with one of my ss women.  She is my most challenging one, so the chances are excellent that I will have another self-control fail in the realm of food consumption.

I am not handling stress well this week.  I cannot find what factor or aspect is different, but something is not the same. I have lost my equilibrium.  I think that sadness, loss and disappointment might be the source, but that really bothers me because I want to, need to, am desperate to get rid of all of that crap.  You know, my self-esteem or feelings of worth just have to stop being influenced by the crappy stuff that happens, because that stuff is always going to happen and I just cannot use it to defeat myself. 

Oh, man, I would love, like really and truly love to put the responsibility for all of this on someone else.  You know, like the crap distributors.  But, if were not me as the honored recipient, it would be someone else and to take it personally is just pointless.  Except that when someone says that you should not take it personally that is just more crap, because it is all personal.  I just wish that when someone gives you their word, that it actually meant something, that you could hold and trust that they mean what they say, what they promise, what they assure and insist is the truth and that you can trust them.

The truth is that trusting anyone is an exercise in heartbreak and disappointment, but mostly heartbreak.  I never break my work,  never promise or assure something and then go back on it.  Really, if we do not have our word, the sanctity and honor of holding and keeping what we say, then we do not have anything.  Still, to be upset, to be hurt by this is childish and immature in every way.  I wonder if anyone can be trusted, really.

Oh, well, my task for the next week is to grow up.

I finished buying the last few items for my end of season gift for my mentee today, on the way home from coffee with my friends.  I know that she is going to like the art supplies that I have pulled together for her, but she will not be nearly as thrilled as I am to share them with her.  Art and crafts has been the way to connect with her.  We have already talked about what we will do together when school begins in the fall.  We will do art every fourth session/visit and will play games or something the rest of the time.  She is going to think about what those other activities will be, during her summer break. 

Her mother's birthday is coming up soon and we will be making her a card this week.  She decorated a picture frame for her this week, and the card will complete the gift.  I have all kinds of stickers, markers, ribbons and embellishments from which she can choose.  It is going to be fun and I will miss seeing her during the next few months.  Although, it will be nice to have an extra day free for noodling around or sleeping late or just wasting any way I like.

Back to the sad stuff, but I am so disappointed in how circular my life is.  I manage to take a tiny step forward in my life and then slide back several paces.  There is some thing that I need to learn before I can even hope to have decent progress in my life. 

Why I am so dense that I cannot see any part of what that might be? 

Is it right here, close to me, at my side, breathing on me and I am not seeing it?  What is it?  Do I need more silence and a quiet heart to recognize it?  What is it; what do you want from me?

Oh, and yesterday was day 27.

GP, because I can.  It is a fields drawing, but it feels like vectors.  Hell, what do I know.  Yeah, I guess it is fields.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 20

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Huge salad, greens, vegetables, little bit of roast beef, no dressing
Dinner:  Crab legs, broccoli, 4 pieces of sushi, some pickled ginger, some wasabi

I did fairly well, considering the cravings that yesterday's first two meals brought.  I guess that I cannot eat off plan without paying some kind of consequences.  I am fine now, but slipping like that kind of scares me now.  I am being foolish, even for me, but I was thinking during dinner that maybe even a little bit of the right-now-wrong-foods might make me stroke out or something, especially this early in the whole weight loss thing because getting to reasonable health is a long way away.  I did not want this to be about losing weight, although becoming healthier hinges on exactly that.

I have to wonder why the concept and admitting that shedding some serious poundage is what I need to do and why I am so reluctant to just own up to that.  It does not help that two things, one last evening and one today, reminded me that I am just one, ugly person.  I guess I must have been feeling too self assured there for a few moments and forgot that.  For some reason, I need to keep reminding myself lately.  Should not be so hard.


I still need to sleep, although I wonder how possible it is to catch up on lost sleep, even in the very short term, like over a few days.  I think that I read that lost sleep cannot ever be regained by sleeping more or longer on subsequent days/nights.  It makes sense.  Not like a bank account or anything.

Speaking of which, my credit card company bumped me up to a higher level of membership, or whatever they call it, and sent me a new card, with an extended renewal date.  Cool.  Except I never received the new card and found out that it was all messed up when I called them for something else and was reminded that I had never activated the new card.  Uh, what new card?  Then the explanation, then the explaining that it was a security issue and now, on a long, holiday weekend, I am without a credit card because I authorized them to cancel the current one, create a new card number and overnight the new one to me.  The account stays the same, everything carries over, so no problems there.  But, with the holiday, the chances are excellent that the new card will arrive next week.  Still no problem, but I and my CC company are wondering what happened to the other one.

One funny thing from my conversation with their representative, or whatever they are called :), happened when she was explaining my options.  One was to do the cancel and reissue, one was to hold on until next week to do it and the third was, "Well, the other option is for you to activate the card you never received."  I started laughing and had to tell her why.  O.K., tiny, lame joke, but it still is funny to me.  Wonder what happened to that card?

I made reservations for three more day trips, which is how this whole thing with the CC started.  They are little excursions to fairly interesting places, but the main focus and energy for me is that I will be out of town and out of contact for three, lovely days over the next month or so.  Paradise.  Bliss.  And, I did not have to be left behind during the Rapture to experience being left alone.  Like I said, bliss.

Well, off to look at a few web sites, bother some people and an early bedtime, hopefully to pretend that I am catching up on all of that lost sleep.  Oh, and I am feeling better health-wise.  Less ear pain, less coughing, less goo clogging up/coming out of me.  More bliss.


Today does have a GP.  It is a thunderbird.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 14

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, coffee, many, many cups
Lunch:  Pho, half a bowl, half of a spring roll
Snack:  Cake on the drive home
Dinner:  Rest of the pho, rest of the spring rolls, more cake

Holy crap, it is now two weeks since I decided, reluctantly, to become a healthier person.  I hope that this is not a pattern, a continuing two-week of pretty dam good and then a backslide where the cake is concerned.  But, it is not my fault.

Really.  After breakfast and taking my friend on her errands, which I enjoyed very much, finding a few lovely craft materials things for myself and my mentee and the grandbabies.  Then, I dropped her at home and went for pho.  The older man there took my order and encouraged me to try a spring roll with pork.  It was very good and I think that I might ask for more help from him sometime.

I did have a moment today, though.  At breakfast, the errand friend needed change for a ten dollar bill.  I gave it to her in singles and a dollar's worth of change.  Cool, yes?  Then, I went to pay my bill for lunch and the ten spot was nowhere to be found.  I had left it on the table at the breakfast place.  With the tip I had already left, our lovely (truly, I like her very much) waitperson received a 150% tip today, just from me.

I was like totally freaked for a minute or two and then realized that it was likely the least expensive lesson I have ever learned.  It was offset by the mind-blowing sale that I got for a tiny, wooden barn and animals that I bought for our newest grand-nephew.  It was on sale for 50% off and then for another 75% off of the sale price because it was damaged.  I have to replace the screws in the hinges of one of the doors and two of the animals are missing, although the tractor was still there.  My mind is still blown over that one.

Where was I?  Lunch.  After, I walked to the Asian market next door and shopped for treats for my daughter and the boys, including daddy in that count, some herbs and a whole roasted duck.  You can choose your own duck from the pile of carcasses in the case, but I let the guy do it and he then hacks it to pieces and puts it into two, large carry-out boxes.  He does not give me the head, but that is fine.  Having my dinner looking back at me, bill and all, makes it impossible to disconnect myself from that lovely, rich, meaty goodness and the abrupt ending of the ducky's life.  He sure is delicious, though.

So.  The cake.  In this market you have to pay for the duck separately, as it is in the deli section.  No problem, except that today the corner of the place was packed, and I mean really, seriously packed, with sweets.  Asian sweets are not like those in any other part of the world.  They are made from sugar, of course, but also a stunning variety of starches, beans, rice and who knows what else.

I chose a wedge of this yellow cake that seemed strangely resilient in it's Styrofoam  and cellophane package.  Then, there were these rice things and those bean things and before I knew it, there were four small packages of sweets joining the hacked-up meat pieces, formerly known as ducky.

I sampled each one in the car on the way home.  The first taste is almost always the best, no matter what something is, and these were no exception.  Except for the cake.  Goodness.  And goodness does describe it.  It is moist.  It tastes of egg and not too much sugar.  It is sort of the airy, chewy texture of angel food cake, but more dense.  Lovely.  Charley and I have been snacking on it all evening.

I never should have bought it.  I will not buy it again.  I should not be eating it, but I am and the rest will be put out for the critters in the morning, along with the other sweets.  All of them, the sweets, cost only $6, so added to the lost $10, not a completely horrible day of wasted money, especially when I remember the huge meat waste I had a month or two ago.  Shudder.  That was shameful, but today's lapse is just a lapse.  Gonna move on.

I tried the new decongestants last night and have felt a little better all day.  Still not using my cane, and using less pain meds.  I bought fiber today and my colon is very happy.  It is a good day when your colon is not sad.  I am personally less sad today because I managed to get over the fact that my friend sort of stole my place to live in town.  At least I think that I am over it.  At this moment I no longer feel the need to stop helping at the gallery and I will try my best to not be upset and all grudge-holding with him when we next meet, which will be Friday.  Yeah, I am pretty sure that I am not upset about it anymore.  Pretty sure.  Maybe I do need a little more time to grieve the loss of that safe place, but I do not plan on using more than a few days for being sad about it.  Yeah, I can do that. No, he did not sort of steal it, he wrangled, pushed and punched my sorry ass right out of that place.  Bastard.  O.K., I am fine now.  Yeah.  I am, but that felt good.  Smiling now.

Tomorrow is back on the healthy wagon.  No cake for anyone.  I have some sewing that I would like to do and I promised to make some doll clothing patterns for a friend and, oh, there looks like there will be time for a nap in the early afternoon, altogether a fine prospect for a Sunday. 

On Monday I call the travel place and plan another short trip or two for the summer and I still have to join WW.  I am ditching the whole getting a new checking account and debit card thing and opting for paying the higher week-at-a-time fee for each week that I go there.  Maybe the extra $3.88 each time will help me value it more and make better use of the program.  That is an easier solution to the other stuff, and it is certainly much better than forgetting to keep enough money in that extra account so that I do not get hit with overdraft fees.  Now, that would seriously amp up my cranky-factor.

So, tonight's GP is one that makes me laugh.  A lot.  It is named Come here often? and there are several interpretations of what this depicts.

It might be:

1. Two of the microbes/germs/bacteria/bugs in my ailing body having a conversation whilst my white blood cells wander around taking long breaks, getting hyped on coffee and angsting about the meaning of life instead of doing their jobs.
2. A couple of citizens of other planetary systems, meeting out at Area 51, in honor of the couple of new books about the place.
3. Two Eastern European countries, redistricted by the machinations of their inbred leadership.
4. Two people from around here, transformed by the Rapture (or is it Raptor, I cannot ever remember),  making connections with the other left-behinds.
5. A pair of new lifeforms found in my refrigerator.

Simple eating

Is there such a thing?

Still trying to eat well, but, gosh, it is so difficult.  It is not like there is any real junk food or fun food in the house, but that is all that I want, desire, crave, crave, crave.  As a result, I am overeating what is here.  Not by much, but more than you need to eat is simply more than you should be eating, big-picture-wise.

Maybe if I keep a record it will help me to take responsibility for being such a, well, something, but not what I was going to write because I am also trying to stop calling myself names, you know, like the really disgusting ones I usually use.  So, no name-calling, just the facts.

Let me see.
A four-inch square of leftover chicken and rice casserole.
6 individual pieces of the sugar-free chocolates that R gave me for Easter.  That was lunch.
A whole bunch of those smiley-faced frozen potato things.  Half is in the refrigerator, but I left them out for a while to cool, forgot about them, and might just toss them in the interest of not getting sick from them.
Lots of water.  Then  more water and then some more.  Lots.
An apple, Ambrosia I think, that I will have before I go to bed.

I am hungry and am not sure that the apple is such a good idea because I still have that tummy trouble, the one where the remains of what you eat leaves your body sooner than is comfortable.

I tried to go, finally, and join Weight Watchers last Tuesday.  It took me a couple of weeks to fool around and shake the numbers so that I could squeeze the fees into my budget. 

So, anyway, I check the schedule, pick a time when they are having a meeting and haul myself over there.  The introductory offer that waived the enrollment fee was over and the weekly prices have gone up.  Not by much, but it was more than the cash I had with me, which was really all the cash I had.  Have, until this month's social security check arrives in my bank account.  There is nothing to do besides cancel or scale back my summer travel plans so that I can do this.  Getting healthier is more important than escaping from here for a while.

It/they are the least expensive weight loss thing around here and I really need something to help me with this.  I read a whole bunch of diet, weight loss, healthy eating books over the past month, and they all have something decent to share, but I have tried to do this by myself for the past several years and it is just not working.  So, the whole group thing is still to be tried.

Tomorrow will find me at the bank, opening a checking account so that I can take advantage of the lower weekly price for the WW meetings.  I am slightly miffed that they make you go through all of this nonsense just to get the lowest fees, although I really do understand that they do want to discourage their members from bringing cash that they then have to handle and eventually bank.  I will get over that, especially if their program helps me.  Although, if that perky Janet is there tomorrow, I will restrain myself from giving her a gentle shake, but with all of the tummy troubles I cannot promise not to barf.  Really, she could get on your last nerve.  I think that I should begin practicing a nice, relatively sincere smile right now.  They say that if you smile, even when you do not feel like smiling, that using those particular muscles can induce a feeling that approximates being happy.  Or happier.  I believe that, but I am not happy about it.

Maybe I would not be so cranky if I felt better.  I have not been able to shake this upper respiratory thing that I caught in January.  Seriously, five months is long enough.  I am guessing that each of those rounds of antibiotics has not been supportive of settling my stomach.  Who knows.  At least the infection seems to be under control.  I feel slightly worse from being around the smokers on Friday.  I am still coughing and my voice is raspy.  I slept most of yesterday, all of last night and will be going off to read a bit before sleeping some more.

I just need enough time to rest and be well, or at least feel better.  I swear, between the head and chest and throat stuff, the vision crap and my lack of energy, it would be so nice to run away somewhere for a week.  Yeah, at least a week, with no responsibilities or opportunities to disappoint anyone.  I mean, strangers do not give a crap about how you perform as a person and if, for some reason, they felt some distress at how miserable a human being you are, well, you cannot get all invested in that because they are strangers and you will be leaving them behind soon enough.

Work, however, is going better than ever and I am so grateful for having that part of my life.  It is nice, even though it is in contrast to how lonely the rest of my life is.  I am not complaining about any of that, truly.  I know how fortunate I am to have the resources that I have.  I see how lucky I am every day at work.  I see it in the market and when I am driving, all the people who would give just about anything to have the life that I have.  I am an ungrateful bitch to want more.  Maybe it is because I am feverish and cranky and feeling like crap all of the time that just wears me down. 

On the bright side, maybe I will be humiliated at Weight Watchers tomorrow and that will put all the rest of my life back into perspective.  Yeah, that's the ticket!  Something to look forward to.

Simple thoughts

Did you hear the one about the old babe who had a PVD/Posterior Vitreous Detachment and then had a second one four days later?  Well, it seems that having that little heart thing a month ago, plus the joint pain, plus the nerve damage, and the high blood pressure was not enough to help her see (pun coming) that she needed to regain her healthy body and the general health that comes with it.

She needed to be faced with the risk of having the remains of her sight lost due to the little bleed-outs in her retinas and the detachments and the flashers before she was able to take all of this crap seriously.  Lordy.

The simple things in a life are what seem to matter the most.  Forgetting that is just a darn shame.  Big problems are reduced when a client keeps thanking you over and over and keeps asking to shake your hand just because of that little thing you did for them.

When the next client does a little of the same and tells you that you are a nice person and that you are the first person with whom he has felt comfortable in a very long time, well, that is the icing on that cookie and that cookie is one that you can safely enjoy without further assault to your vision.

It is a lovely thing when the person who felt most threatened by your volunteering has become one of your most ardent supporters, which is important in an increasingly uncertain, local government, economic environment.

That he has a larger pole up his ass than you do is an opportunity to mind your own hubris before it can come back and bite you in the ass.  Frankly, it is a blessing, and you get to be grateful not only for his transformation, but for the gentle reflection he offers to your own attitudes and behaviors.

So, anyway, there is this guy who comes into the library on a fairly regular basis.  I do not know who he is, but I see him there all the time.

Today he has a new haircut.  I see him walking towards me and I think, "Man, that is so cool...he is manifesting his inner Beatle."  The mop-top bowl cut is actually quite cute on him.

Then, we pass and I turn to look at the back of the new haircut and I think, "Man, do you not have any friends who are good enough friends to share with you that, from behind, your head looks like a furry penis?"

It is very sad, very, very sad, when a local organization, one dedicated to the needs of veterans, accepts the help of a good person in utilizing a significant part of their facility to bring in much needed funds, and then after learning from him, decide to eliminate him from the program he designed, built and successfully ran.

It would be fine if the reason for dumping the good person was other than intentionally using him to develop the program so that they could take over and run it themselves.  Had they been upfront about their plans, no one would have been surprised or hurt in the transition.  But, seriously, to use someone like that is just plain shameful.

I am dedicated to that organization and when I heard what had happened I went to the source, where the suspicions of the dumped, good person were confirmed.  Bad enough to do that, but how much worse to be so blasé, so matter-of-fact and unashamed about it.  I could not be more shocked if it had happened to me.  I am hoping that writing it down will help me to process what seems like a complete betrayal of principles, beliefs and honor.   I am stunned and see no future time when this is not going to bother me.  I have also severed my connection to them, which makes me more sad that I can even think about.

I want to be light-hearted about this, you know, how breaking up is so hard to do (feel free to sing along), but I thought that I could do my little, peripheral stuff there and it could be a sort of connection to my brother, and there just is not any reasonably light aspect that I can find, which is another disappointment for a positive view girl like me.  Heartbroken and a little scared that such a thing could happen.

I get to play with the babies and their mommy tomorrow.  She, the mommy, was ill last week and I could give her only one day.  Maybe she will feel well enough to play outside with us.  More likely, she will use the time to catch up on all the stuff that was put aside so that she and her babies could play outside every day.

She is a lovely mom and I adore her.  I think that we will surprise her with home-made pizza for lunch.  One of her favorites.

I am a big girl.  I can pull up my big girl panties and get on with whatever needs getting on.  Still, today's disappointment and subsequent split with one of my favorite organizations is so sad.  People get to be human.  I get to let them do that.  I get to accept people for who they are, because, you know, we are all simply doing the best that we can, here on this pretty, little planet.  I get all that.  But, if I really do, then why does my heart ache so much about something that did not directly happen to me?

I have to release this.  Holding on to it serves no one.  Besides, it feels as though I am giving some of my power away to them, and they do not deserve to have anything from me.  This totally and completely sucks.

Frequencies

It is impossible to avoid finding pleasure in a day.  Sometime I have to look for it, on occasion it is necessary to wrestle it out of the mess that a day can be.  So, I should be writing here more often.

I do not because I am weak and the end of the day finds me too exhausted from all of the things that are not pleasurable.  Still, I should make the effort.

Yesterday found me without any scheduled clients.  In itself, it is a cause for unbounded joy, because it means that I have an entire day to catch up on all of the things that never seem to get finished in a normal day.  So, yeah, that was really great.  I did have two short, impromptu meetings with other staff, but I managed to bring everything up to speed, including the forum site that I created for clients. 

The two previous weeks were full of clients, and they were all, with a single exception, my most favorite type.  They come in, do the work and pull together all of the adjunct work they need to do. 

Ah, my exception.  He is the man who rarely shows up, often sleeps/dozes, and is very resistant to doing his own work.  We have established that he does not have any reading or behavioral deficits, and my best guess is that he really does not embrace forward movement in his life right now.  When he shows up, we work; when he stays home, I am able to take walk-ins and do more catch-up stuff.  My supervisor believes that I should have fired him as a client long ago, but, truth be told, I kind of look forward to what he will do next.  He is also a bit dramatic, and wails that if he forgets his appointments that I will be mad at him.  Frankly, I find him amusing, but if that is what he needs to feel about it, then that is just fine.  He missed his appointment this week.  I am looking forward to the next installment.

What else.  I am still infusing hydration liquids into a cat with kidney failure.  She is doing well and is so sweet about allowing me to poke her with a huge needle and then fill the space above her shoulders with cooler than body temperature liquid.  She tolerates the entire procedure and then takes a step or two away from me, plops down and sits and rests whilst I put all of the equipment away.  Her owner is calming down a bit and the two of them are often the sweetest part of my week.

I received a call this morning from the social service agency for which I sometimes volunteer.  One of my old clients has been diagnosed with cancer and I am taking her to an out of town appointment tomorrow.  I think that I am also going to be designated as her person qualified to accompany her and take notes during her doctor visits.  I am saddened by her illness, but thrilled to be involved with her again.  If she is strong enough, I will offer to take her to lunch before returning her to her home.

The kitties are fine, although C seems to be having trouble with his colon again and is vomiting a fair amount.  Sad for the process of his health, but also because it means that he cannot sleep in my room whenever he likes.  I have no desire to clean up the effluence from either end of that wonderful guy, so he must stay on the wrong side of that door.  It means that both cats cannot go there, and that makes for sadness for all of us.

I am trying to stay upbeat here, but I had an issue with my good, as in decent vision, eye last week.  It has not resolved and there is not explanation of the cause or how to fix or prevent the bastardly issue.  So, I am concentrating on enjoying the vision that I have now and not stressing about something which is unknown and might not fully manifest anyway. 

I am weary of my weight, as in huge body, and am trying to move in the direction of doing something about it.  I have good intentions, really and truly I do.  Moving from intention, desire and need is difficult for me.  It is as though I do not feel deserving of a healthy life.  It is like I deserve to have a sad body to match my sad life.  I cannot control or really even affect the life part, but I could and can do something about my physical aspect.  Why is this so hard and why does it make me weep.  I have to move beyond this barrier.  If I do not, I will die long before I want or need.

Maps

I was using Google Maps this morning to find the location and direction to a family thing being held in another state, on the weekend next.

Alongside of the directions, there was the full, continental US map image.  Except for the tolls and the likelihood of encountering road construction, it looks like a nice and easy trip.

I grabbed the little zoom bar and pulled it all the way down so that I could see the whole world.  I swear, that image never fails to thrill me right down to my core.  That teeny place marker, that infinitesimal point where I will be spending a couple of hours on the road, well, it just floors me.

A space on my screen that a gently expanded hand-width covers and I have touched the entire planet.  Rotate my hand approximately 20 degrees and I could hold it in my palm.  It makes me think of how delicate, how fragile and wondrous it is, this place we call home.

Sure, it enthuses me to take care of it.  More than that, it helps me revisit my commitment to making my part of it, that tiny bit at the point of the marker, a better place.  Small things salve my emotions, fuel my desires and make make my behaviors worth performing them.  My tininess reminds me of my connection to every other person, every other living thing.  I am humbled by the shared responsibilities and shames me for my pitiful efforts.

On that map, I am an invisible speck beneath uncounted specks. 

Oh, and I might have lost a friend today.  If it happens, it will make me sad beyond my ability to express how truly sad I will be.  Sometimes friends have to take that risk with each other.  But, I will still be sad.

Simple thoughts

Today was too busy and too full of complicated issues for a simpleton like me.

I had a despair hangover from last evening at the gallery.  Just because you are creative, and we invite you to exhibit with us, well, that does not give you free rein to be a cranky bitch.  But, you cannot tell someone where they can put their artistic temperament and still run a business that deals exclusively with artsy fartsy types.

I went to a craft fair after this morning's coffee get-together.  It is probably the last nice one before the holidays and whilst I rarely buy anything, preferring to make my own crap, they are great fun.  Seeing how other people, especially old babes like me, manifest their creativity is a glorious and wondrous experience.  I simply cannot get enough of it.  One of my never-to-be-manifested-dreams is to provide a safe and supportive place for all of these women to sell their stuff all year round.  The talent out there is stunning, and they are some of the nicest people on the whole damn planet.  Blessings to them all.

Because my sweet and wonderful daughter and her equally adorable husband left within ten minutes of my arrival at her house today, and then I left a mere five minutes after they arrived back home, there were no adults there to witness and then complain because I do not do everything exactly like the resident adults do things.  It is the first visit in a long time where I did not get in trouble for not being a clone, which probably would not have the capability of doing everything exactly like, well...oh, never mind.

The day ended with a small dinner of four of us coffee chickies and two husbands.  One of us is fully into her third year of treatment for cancer.  She is receiving some kind of hospice care and doing quite well.  Tonight she did exceptionally well because she had a big blood transfusion this afternoon.  Even so, she pooped out shortly after dinner and had to go home. 

But, it was so wonderful seeing her out and about and eating well and having a good time.  She even had a nice bowl of ice cream for dessert.  It is all so bittersweet.  I love seeing her, but it is such a struggle to avoid talking about her health, as she chooses to not have it be a part of our conversations or time together.  Her journey, her choices, her rules.  It is enough.

No one believes that I am really taking a break from life for a while.  You know, I am sorry that this retirement from just about everything is taking place during these fall and winter holidays, but this is the appropriate time to do this.  It feels very surreal.  Everyone thinks that I will be attending all of the parties, open-houses and actual holidays.  Even my lovely daughter's lovely husband asked me this afternoon when we would be getting together for Yule.  My simple reply was that I am taking a break from holidays for a while.  Whilst no one wants to actually discuss this with me, they keep believing that I am kidding or something.  

This is not an avoidance or some kind of rebellion or taking a stand or anything like that.  It is simply me taking a break in order to avoid completely breaking.

Nothing is simple.  What a shame.

Simple Thoughts

Being a simpleton, I have simple thoughts.  I like to think of my self as complicated, but most of the time I am as complex as a box of rocks, and that is on a good day.

But, that does not stop me from having random ideas, notions and crackpot musings.  If nothing else, it keeps it interesting on this end.

So, anyway, one day last weekend was particularly challenging in the whole self-esteem departments.  My daughter is having a challenging time of her own and is using me as her safe place to let off steam.  No problem, because that is what mother's are designed to be for their children, the ultimate safe place.  Unfortunately, this has been going on for a considerable while now and I think that it has become more habit than genuine release for her.  I think that I might be at the end of my endurance for this.  Like seriously not able to continue to hold up my end of the dynamic.  It has gotten to the point where I am reluctant to visit her or talk on the telephone.  How fucking sad is that?

Which brings up another thing...I am trying to stop cursing.  I came to profanity late in life, as in only fifteen years ago, or so.  Factor in that I really, really and truly like swearing and I now have another serious dilemma.  I never curse in front of  family members, but my friends and my writing are fair game.  Add in the continuing drama in my personal environment, and by Saturday evening I was at the end of something, maybe my rope or my thread or something tenuous like that, hard to hold on to and, well, like that.

It is difficult to have any reasonable life if you think that you are letting down everyone around you and I was feeling worse than I have in a very long time.  Seriously worse.

Then I decided that as long as I was feeling so depressed that I might as well work on my budget, such as it is.  Turns out that I am not in as sad a financial shape as I thought.  Because I am old now and have accumulated a lot of crap stuff, I rarely have to buy anything.  Lye and oils for disastrous soap experiments, groceries and gasoline for the car that I use are my major expenses and do not have to be included in the not-buying crap stuff  issue. I am managing to put a little away each month for future traveling, as well.  I am keeping up with my medical costs and can continue to do that as long as I stop getting so sick.  I can still afford to have Saturday Morning Coffee with my friends.  I can still afford to volunteer instead of trying to find a real job that pays real money.  Makes me shudder just considering that possible task.

And, when I added it all up, I can manage very well, am managing very well indeed.  Who woulda thunk it.  Not me, and the simple act of doing that budget work made me feel better.  A lot better. 

I also took a look at my other relationships and I am doing outstanding in that area.  Yay for me.  Work is great and so is my other volunteering jobs.  Double-yay.  I have been asked to curate an exhibit early next year and the yay-for-mes add up nicely.

I guess I have to remember that even though I will never be able to fix some things in my life, I can still do the best of which I am capable, in each moment and just move on.    I have to remember that being dangerously depressed is not so much fun, but it is temporary, despite how unyielding it may seem in the moments that it holds dear.  There is always tomorrow and new opportunities.  It is enough.

One more thing.  I am not spell-checking this writing here.  Let the errors fall where they may.

Stupid "location" will not work, so I am in the moment.