Ouch

So I'm having some learning curve difficulties changing what I eat.

Note, I didn't say "trying a diet", I am actually in a space with things where I realize I actually, for real have to make a permanent shift in how and what I eat.

But, I am unsurprisingly struggling.

Not just with the overwhelm of it all but with the way my body is handling trying new things.  Or re-trying not new things.

We all know I struggle with food issues and have a long standing problem with my stomach not liking a lot of things, and so I had some things that while not particularly healthy, would at least not cause me pain or discomfort.

And now those things are not things I should have.  I mean, they never really were but that was more in a "these are not healthy" kind of way vs a "these are making my body actively destroy itself" kind of way.

Food is a hard one for me, has been for a long while now, but I'm already missing the pain free days of last month.  And I'm missing the comfort foods I knew I could enjoy.

Whine, whine, whine, I know... I'm lucky to have access to such an abundance of food, I know this.

I just write this with a very unhappy stomach after eating very healthily all day when all I wanted to do was have chocolate and chase that down with some chocolate (again) and then some salty snack food.

It kind of feels like when you go to the gym all gung ho and then end up twisting your knee or something... it's like really? I'm trying to be HEALTHY and you're getting mad at me?  Come on body!  Work with me here!

Grrr

In today's "not really a problem just an I'm a lucky human problem" (aka first world problem) I have run into the second missing second book.

Wait, that makes no sense.  Or only makes a little sense.

I'm re-reading the books in my bookshelf to make some room and all.  So I have a few YA type series and the last series I started was a series of three and I finished the first and am missing the second.  Ugh, frustrating, but I'll move on to a different series of three.

Started the first one of those, went to get the next and nope!  First and third only.  BOO!

I assume I loaned them to someone and forgot and they did too and that's the risk of loaning out books and it's not a huge issue because I'll likely not be keeping either series but now I at least want to remember what happens before I give them away!

Boo, I say, BOO!

Oh, second books, wherefore art thou?

Wha?

In yesterday's "stupid human tricks" category... after waking up from a super stressful dream where I had to pack really quickly (to go... somewhere?) and then realized I had packed NO underwear at all! I somehow managed to gauge out a chunk of skin from the side of my hand.

Which I could maybe understand if I hadn't just cut my nails.

So... yeah.  I am extra special!

A Weekend

Well this month has been awful for me.  And I was at a point where I really didn't think I could handle another day of it...

But friends had made a date for us to go out to eat together this weekend and although I really really really really wanted to cancel, I didn't.  And the day itself was such a crappy day for me I actually messaged one of my friends and said "I'm having a really rough day could you maybe meet earlier?"  And this is not something I usually do.  I mean sure, I'll tell Jason, or C-Dawg or my brother that it's a bad day but that's about as far as I'll usually share.  So it was a big deal for me to reach out to someone else.

But I did, and we met and I talked about some things and my health a bit and then our other friends joined us and we ate and we caught up and I feel so much better.

There's a lot to be said for socialization, there really is.  Which is difficult when you're not well and just want to be insular.  But I have wonderful friends.  Kind, gentle souls who mean so well, and it was great to see them and it has been far too long.

So it's the end of the month (go figure) and I'm feeling hopeful that I've made it thorough the worst of it.  This is always my hardest time of year for a number of reasons and my brother's health and then my additional health on top of health were added stressors, so while I'm sure no one is "surprised" that this month was awful, it didn't really help me to know "boy, things are difficult right now." 

So this was a good weekend.  Because it wasn't awful.  And I have really good people in my life. 

I still don't feel awesome, but the amount of better I feel is a huge relief. 

TING!

I finally change my light bulb next to my bed.  You know the one that's been going "ting"?

It's been, what... two months?  And I just kept waiting for it to stop.  And, well, it hasn't.

But not only has it not stopped, the timing of the ting/ping is RIGHT when I'm falling asleep.

So if you've ever wondered how long it takes for me to fall asleep?  The same amount of time it takes for my lightbulb to cool enough to ting.

Because then it wakes me up again, or half wakes me out of the half sleep.  And then there's a SECOND ONE!

So, I finally put in a new light bulb and I'm hoping tonight I won't even notice it not making the noise.

Blocked

I've had an absolute art block since the start of the month and I stopped trying to fight it this week and just haven't... done any art at all.  (Which, I should probably get on that, even just as practice but still.)

I suppose it's understandable with everything that's going on but it doesn't actually make it any easier to think that or know that. 

I follow a lot of really amazing artists on Instagram and right now it's killing me to look at their work.  Rather than feeling inspired, I feel crushed.  A combination of "I can't do that" and "I can't do anything" added to "I will never make any money doing this anyway" and some "what's the point?"

Actually, there's a lot of "what's the point" happening right now.

Which... seeing other artists' work does not help with at all.  Everyone's hustling, putting out so much work, really good stuff, and I don't feel like I can keep up.  Maybe not ever.  But certainly not right now.

I've been trying to remind myself that I'm not all that well.  Especially right now.  And that helps with the pressure a bit but doesn't inspire me.

So I'm trying to find some balance between fighting the not so good and just letting myself go through whatever.

But yeah, looking at art is really quite miserable for me right now, which sucks.

Drifting

Time has been super weird for me this month.  I figure it's likely from the health stuff that's been going on since the first but I'm actively unaware it's 2019.

Like, every single time I see something, like an event or something with the date "2019" next to it I kind of cringe for whoever screwed up the website, or the signage or the.... and then I realize that no, I actually am nearly a month into a year I didn't notice showing up.

Or something.

It's really more extra bizarre for me right now than it usually is.  And apparently it's already 2019.  Like, now.

Oh, Ok Then

For whatever reason, in my dream last night I was in jail.  (Or prison, I don't know)

I haven't watched Wentworth recently, or Orange is the New Black or anything so not sure why my brain went there.

The main issues in the dream were clothes, because everyone had the cool sweaters (like Wentworth I guess, more choice in clothing although only in beige or navy blue) and I didn't.  Apparently someone comes in now and then and sells them, so I'd have to wait, and get money.  And then I didn't know how to do laundry and my socks needed washed (just like in real life, always with the socks needing washed!) 

And then at the end of the dream my "friends" (again, no idea how I knew them but they kind of looked like the Spice Girls a bit...) were sad because one of their sisters had died.  And when we had the group assembly (I dunno!) they were holding the funeral but I had to stand on the roof because I was new.

So, you know, that's a thing that my brain decided to do.

Awe-Some

Super thrilled that the clouds stayed away for the entire lunar eclipse for us last night.  What a neat thing to witness!

Connected

Good lord bodies are complicated!  And so terribly, terrifically connected.

I am a strong believer in a more holistic approach to health... something along the lines of "you can't treat a part without treating the whole" or, you know, something like that but fancier!

This isn't just the "leg bone's connected to the ankle bone" kind of thing, it's also the "endocrine systems's connected to the frigging every other system" kind of thing.  And so on and so forth.  There is also increasing evidence of the importance of mental and emotional health, and more and more research being done around the link of health and stress.  (I'm oversimplifying, but the point stands.)  When you look into how to have good heart health, they all talk about reducing this food or that food, and increasing exercise but they also all talk about reducing stress.  Oh, and quitting smoking.  So, at least I'm good there, right?!

This connection of things makes it difficult to figure out just how to go forward with treatment though.  I even found it with my shoulder. You find that other places in your body are hurting and it turns out it's because of how you're holding yourself do adjust for the shoulder pain or lack of mobility and then everything just kind of Jenga falls apart.  So is your elevated cholesterol from your diet?  Genetics?  Lifestyle?  Stress?  Why, yes, yes it is!  Or... isn't. 

And man oh man the constant mixed messages from the world right now about what to eat.  How to eat what you eat.  How not to eat.  I mean the heart and stroke people have pretty consistent guidelines but they aren't the same guidelines as health experts X and Y suggest and OMG can you all just calm the frig down for a minute and let me catch my breath here?

And boy do I feel for my brother.  Who has been watching his food, and exercising as well as being on the medication that was supposed to... help.  He was shocked, I think, that things happened despite all this and yeah, that's a wakeup call too.  Especially for me.  I've been just kind of coasting on "I'm pretty healthy" for a long while now.  I think a number of us do.

And can I just say this ageing stuff still sucks?

Sigh.

I know, a disjointed, unconnected blog babble.  Sorry.  I just, it's hard to write when you're also trying to keep stuff to yourself, you know?  I'm like some sort of top secret document where things are blacked out and [redacted] and you're trying to piece together what on earth is going on from the seven words that are left to be read.

Allllrighty

At some point over the holidays (or... whenever), I read a quote from some author (yeah, I totally forget) saying that his method of writing his books is to write (I'm paraphrasing) "two hundred crappy words a day."  (He said shitty, but you know.. I'll be polite.)  I didn't read far into it but he said that sitting down every day to write two hundred words that didn't need to be good often lead to more than two hundred words and they often weren't all that crappy. 

So I thought about it for a few weeks (months?) and figured, well, what the hell, I can probably write two hundred crappy words a day, can't I?  I don't have a fiction story to tell.  In fact, I haven't the faintest idea how authors go about doing that, it seems like some kind of miracle to my mind.  (And yes, I know there are courses and classes and things I could read...)  But maybe if I just sat down to write every day, like I've done with photographs and like I've done with art, maybe just the practice of "writing" every day would bring me something.  Or not.

So for the last three days I've reminded myself at night to just type out two hundred words before I shut things down for the night.  And, so I have about eight hundred words that aren't really any thing other than me talking to an audience that doesn't exist about whatever it was that was on my mind that particular night.

Which... is what I used to do here.  Kind of.  But not really?

Authors (and those who study authors) talk about "voice".  And I get it.  I've always gotten it, but now especially I "get" get it.  This blog has a certain voice.  I have a way of writing here that has been going on for more than ten years.  There are things I don't talk about, and things I don't mention and there is also a particular way I write.  It's not quite the same as the writing I do in, say a journal/diary, or this two hundred crappy words a day thing I'm half contemplating.  Perhaps critics could recognize it as both from the same writer, but to me?  Writing them feels different.  It's interesting.

I did think that I could/should (?) just publish those two hundred words here, but then I thought I'd maybe rather not, at least not now.  But it did bring up the question, again, of the writing block I've had here since my life took a sharp turn towards "really fucking difficult" a few years back and the block I continue to have in terms of what to say.  I mean, this is me talking about my life.. for the most part.  But I'm not comfortable doing that when I have a lot of health and other aspects that I'm struggling with.  And fear.  Talking about fear and dealing with fear make everything that much harder.  In so so many ways.

But, I digress.  Kind of.

My brother is home and ok and resting and feeling fairly positive about going forward from here.  I know that now he'll be more aware of things and that he'll have extra care from the medical system and specialists.

Me?  I am waiting to go over my results with my doctor and seeing what suggestions she has for me and where I want to go.  I don't have enough information right now to piece together much.  Things might be totally fine (with some elevated cholesterol to deal with, ugh).  They might be medium fine with some things to watch.  Or, of course, they could be not so great and have the potential for needing intervention. 

I went through my old medical files (that I got when my doctor retired and my new doctor doesn't want... go figure) and managed to find old tests that suggested the same issue, so I'm reminding myself that I haven't died of it so far so... you know, maybe, probably not going to today?  I'm a little frustrated that my doctor didn't inform me of the abnormal results when they were first told, but perhaps she decided they weren't worth mentioning.  We'll see my new doctor's take on it, with additional information and the now evident "family history" aspect.  Sigh.


So, as I said, we're all a little shaken here.  Changes are in the process of being made, and I'm waiting to hear what, if anything should/will change for me. 

Here's hoping for the best and that I can make some changes happen without too much difficulty (ha!) and that I go forward in even better health this year. 

Oh Boy

Ok, so, here's the thing...

Uh, my brother just kinda barely avoided a heart attack a few days ago. 

Which is a not all that overly dramatic way of saying he was having chest pain, went in to get it looked at and turns out he needed some interventions.

It's been a shock to us all, and my stress and anxiety have gone sky high.  I went in for a battery of tests myself and my cholesterol is slightly elevated as well as a couple of other things I'll go over with my doctor.

I'm somewhere between being in shock and totally freaking out.  And while things could have gone a lot worse for my brother and we're all very happy he went in when he did (more people should do this!) it was still a shock and quite upsetting.

So my plans to "write more posts in a couple of days" just did not happen, obviously, and I'm still processing things and having some pretty rough moments.

I don't really want to babble his private health information out so I'll just say it's good.  Could have been very bad.  Isn't. 

And now I have a lot of things to figure out how to deal with on top of the other things I was figuring out how to deal with but just so you know I'm sort of messy right now.  Like, kind of extra a mess.  You know?

But everyone's ok in that way where you put it in quotations.  We're "OK". 

Have You?

You know that thing they do in the movies where they're having a nightmare and they sit BOLT UPRIGHT when waking up from said nightmare?  Have you ever actually done that?

What about demurely covering yourself with the sheet (that apparently has no comforter or blanket over it or isn't tucked in) to make your way sheepishly to the bedroom?

Ever woken up with perfect hair, smiling?  (That one might be a bit more normal for morning people...)

But really.. the nightmare one... ?

Smiley Face

Yesterday marked my 100th day in a row of meditation.  I'm pretty proud of that!

I started in October as I saw a "one month challenge" and thought I could do that.  And then I was so pleased I managed to do that that I did the same thing the next month and the next and so here we are.

Yay me. :)

Oh Lawd!

That, up there (the title) is part of an internet joke that I happened to see. 

In utterly unrelated news, it's Sunday night as I type this and I've just come through my second panic attack of the day.  Needless to say my plans for writing have been put aside for now so instead I'll leave you with the weird news that apparently it's already a week into January?  And the good news that it was still light out at 4:45 or so yesterday afternoon (well, this afternoon as I type, but you get my point.)

So yes, longer days are already ever so slightly noticeable.  Phew.

Ouch

My body last week gave me a(nother) clear indicator that it is aging.

It was a pretty devastating and upsetting reminder and I had some serious cries over it but I am also going to do what I can to work with my body and change for the better what I can.

It's hard though.  And it makes me sad.  And while I don't think there's really any way to have "younger" people believe the whole "enjoy your body when it's young" thing..... I really wish I had.

Oh the things you don't realize you're taking for granted until something points it out to you, eh?

Who?

I was thinking of some friends I hadn't talked to in a while so sent a few texts the other day to say hi, all the while wondering if their number might have changed...

Then I took a scroll through my phone's contact list and found myself more than once having absolutely no idea who a person was.

Like, Ben?  Who is Ben?  How do I know Ben?  Or when did I know Ben?  I really can't think of anyone called Ben but at some point I put his number into my phone?

There was another name or two like that, while most I could associate with a person or something, there are some I just have no idea who they are, were, or anything at all.

Sorry Ben... I hope you're well? 

(Do I deleted the unknown numbers?  I guess?)

So, Um

I got gum in my hair.

No, I'm not kidding.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I ever got gum in my hair as a kid but sure, maybe I did.  But never did I think I'd ever get gum in my hair as a grown adult!  Come on now!

I usually brush my hair at night before bed, but not always, but I do almost always brush my hair in the morning, or at least before going out, but it was holidays last week and I was feeling lazy so I just threw my hair into a ponytail and didn't even think of brushing it!

Then, I was watching a show with Jason and brushing my hair and... what... what?  WHAT IS STUCK IN MY HAIR OMG IT IS GUM?  GUM????

Jason kindly offered to cut it out for me and although his glee was daunting, I know he's a decent hair cutter type person (plus he raised kids) and I wasn't in any mood to google "how to get gum out of hair without cutting it" so I just rescued as much hair as I could and let him cut out the rest (and a couple of innocent inches, bah!)

And then I set to figuring out how on earth I'd gotten gum in my hair!

And here's what I figure happened....

I chew gum at night before I brush my teeth.  I do this while on my couch, usually watching a show on my laptop.  So... lying comfortably, chilling out. 

I don't chew the gum for long, just kind of as a "get anything big out of my teeth" sort of thing.  It's maybe not helpful at all but I still do it, is a habit by now.  So I remember chewing it and having already recycled the little paper wrapping, I had nowhere to put the gum so I put it on the rim of my water bottle to "throw out next time I get up".

I generally drink less at night so didn't think much of it, but what I think must have happened is that I grabbed some water, without thinking about it and was watching whatever (probably House of Cards, I just re watched it all before watching the final season) and didn't notice the gum, which then fell into my hair and got lodged there since... well, that was one of the nights I guess I didn't brush my hair before bed.  Bah!

So... moral of the story is either don't drink water... or more likely, don't put your gum in places you forget about it!

But yeah... getting gum in your hair.. not just for kids anymore!

Ahhhhh

I stopped going out for New Years a while ago and have enjoyed a quiet night, usually to myself for a number of years.

This year, I chose to stay home, with my own thoughts, and actually found myself quite drained and exhausted.  So I cleaned my house up (as per tradition) and left the windows open for the fresh new year's air and I went to bed a few hours before midnight.

I read for a bit, and then fell asleep, even though a few days earlier I'd said to a practitioner that "the sound of downtown celebrating always wakes me up".

Not that I've fallen asleep that many times before midnight on New Year's Eve, but I'd apparently done it at least once before.  Which means Monday night shouldn't have been a huge surprise.  But it still kind of was!

I did think about putting earplugs in but I also thought it would be nice to be woken up by the bells and whatever else.

Except I guess I forgot that the bells go on for quite a while.  As in, when I'd been lying there for a while, listening to them and some firecracker/works, I finally looked at the clock and it was only 11:38.  So I lay in bed not really awake, but certainly not asleep kind of half trying to sleep but wanting to be awake for the new year and then things got a little quiet and then the actual celebrating happened.  The bells seemed louder and there was shouting and firecracking/workings and I got up, super dazed and said a hello to the New Year.  I opened my door to let the air in/out.  I closed up a window so it wouldn't be freezing in the morning, and then I went back to bed.

It was a strange evening, a rather melancholy one and I wasn't terribly well rested on New Year's Day but here we are, in a new year, with new numbers to remember to write down and a new calendar to flip through.

Life is funny, "time" is weird.  I'm happy to not be recovering from a wild night out in my first few days of 2019.  Happy New Year, guys.

Happy New Year

May 2019 bring you more health, more happiness, and more love.

All the best my friends!