It's Going To Be Fun

Friday. The end of a busy week although weekends haven't meant much to me since I've been off work. Right now there is an 8 week old baby sleeping on my office rug as I type this. I wish I could post a photo so you could see his sweetness.

I sent the saying on this graphic to my therapist today. She gave me work to do at my last session that I have yet to do. I spent most of the session telling her 'this is hard, but I can do it'.

I want to do it and I want to run the other way from doing it. It's a week until my next session. We'll see how long it takes me to do the work. The plan is for tomorrow. Wish me luck. She also told me I sent her a fuck you vibe the whole session. Funny what one will fork over money to do. Sigh.

Every single step I have taken in the direction of my healing and growth has been worth it in the end. Even on the days when it is so uncomfortable that I squirm. I sometimes think of myself as an unruly two year old who needs her face washed and is wrestling her face out of the reach of the one trying to help her. It takes a while for me to hold still and welcome help.

That little baby sleeping on the rug is one reason I persevere in healing. I am so grateful for all the goodness we can affirm in him because we have learned to affirm it in ourselves. No matter how messy and seemingly unbearable life gets, it is good. Holding a baby reminds me of that daily.

But I do sometimes wish the getting there was easier instead of feeling like I'm going to die trying.

I have a speeding ticket notice sitting on my desk. It's not due to be paid for a month so it will sit there until then. If I am late in paying it, it will be equal to the amount of one therapy session.

Obviously I must've been in a hurry to get somewhere that day, but I can assure you that it wasn't in the directions of personal growth.

Nice Things

I sent this meme to my therapist the other day. She works hard at helping me re-frame things. At helping me see where I'm doing things well. I can tell you in a millisecond how I'm screwing up. That takes no effort at all. But, in reality, I'm no different than anyone else. A mixture of attitudes and actions that, in the end, mean I am human. Simply human. Not super human. And not a villain, either.

I'm headed back to work in a few weeks. I would never have predicted I'd be off work for 8 months when I walked out of there last October. I thought six weeks was being generous in time off to get my shit together. That's what I thought my goal should be. Somewhere along the lines of get a grip.

If only healing was that easy. Give oneself a pep talk and all will be well. Akin to rubbing a genie's lamp and getting your wish granted. Instead it's more like signing up for a roller coaster ride and hanging on for dear life with all the twists and turns, mountain tops and valleys. Such fun.

When I was a teenager I went on a student exchange to the other side of the country.  One day we boarded a boat to go to an amusement park that was situated on an island. Among all the typical rides there was a gigantic roller coaster. I remember going on the ride that left one pressed up against a wall while they dropped the floor out while the centrifugal force kept you up against the wall. On another one we were in a cage that rolled over and over while at the same time we went up and around like a Ferris wheel.  My friend and I swore our way up and over so loudly that they let us off after one trip around the wheel. We went on the log ride through the water. I liked that one.

The roller coaster at that park was renowned enough that it made headlines that week when it malfunctioned and some people were hurt. Back in those days long distance phone calls were a luxury that only happened after six o'clock at night. My mom phoned to make sure I hadn't been on the roller coaster.

I told her that while I went on rides that took my breath away, I did not get on the roller coaster of a lifetime. I saved that for now.

Space to Grow

Monday morning. I got up and went swimming. I haven't had a regular swimming practice in seven months. It feels good to begin doing things that were a regular part of my life pre flashback.

As I was driving home from the pool this morning I was thinking about how I didn't do any housework for 8 weeks post flashback. How I kept looking around my house and not caring one whit about doing anything, really. I read a lot of books. I crocheted until my wrist was sore. I slept.

My physiotherapist told me that I was being given a gift of rest. That I was not to spend my time off caring about picking up the socks from the floor. I was not to see my time off as a time for getting things done. It was a time to heal.

When a person feels lost it's hard to fathom caring about anything ever again. It feels like a slow motion one foot in front of the other journey with barely the strength to lift one's foot.

There truly isn't a short cut to get to a better place. I'm grateful for medication that has helped me function again. I'm waking up feeling hopeful. I'm grateful to have had the time to heal.

One time when I was visiting my physiotherapist, after I'd had a misstep and fallen down in our entry way, when I somehow managed not to hurt myself even though I landed with a loud thud and whacked my head, she looked at me and said, "You're not fragile."

Hard Days

Today has been a hard day. I need to type a little before I go to sleep. So that I can sleep.

A friend and I went to the hospital today and delivered thank you cards to those who cared for our mutual friend who died from cancer nearly 4 weeks ago. I hadn't been back there since the last time I sat with my friend. I think I was on auto pilot a little bit, today. There are many moments when I can't wrap my head around the fact that she is gone. I sat and watched as people got dropped off outside the front doors of the hospital. I sat where I normally sat to wait for my friend. It was a beautifully sunshiny day and we would have gone outside after her treatment and enjoyed the sun. I miss her.

I had my own appointments to attend and those went well. Skirted around needing oxygen although that brings me mixed feelings. I would love to feel rested and I think oxygen would help me with that. I am just a few numbers above the cut off line to qualify for government funded at home oxygen. On the other hand I am not tied to a machine and hoses 24/7. Some days I admit to being weary of feeling weary.

I went from the hospital directly to the vet's office where we sent our little dog over the rainbow bridge. For the first time in 30 years we have no dog to call our own. It's just sad. And empty. Well, except for youngest son's Doberman and Great Dane. One of them likes to crawl into bed and sleep at my feet. The other one likes to think he's a lap dog. A 130+ lb. lap dog. They fill the void but they aren't our own.

Our youngest son and his newborn son are living with us. We are getting lots of baby snuggles and those are healing. It's a complicated situation that has the baby's mom largely out of the picture. Situations that are bittersweet circumvent normal celebrations that a new born baby brings. It's hard.

Our older son was diagnosed with cancer in March. He is in between his first and second rounds of chemo. I think he can check off experiencing nearly every side effect of chemo. The other night I watched as he held his head in his hands and let the tears flow for a little bit. I felt my own tears rise to the surface and I swallowed them. You so want to make it all better for your kids no matter what their age. And you can't. You try and do what you can to ease the load knowing full well that there is a place in a cancer journey that is solo and belongs only to the patient. The one that goes on in their head when the world is asleep. Please pray.

Earlier this week I listened to two different people share their journey with me as they walk the road of recovery from addiction. Doing my best to hold space for them to gain greater self awareness and drop the heavy load of self judgement that can weigh one down. For one of those people I sat in the same group treatment room at the rehab I went to all those years ago. Wanting recovery takes courage, honesty and willingness along with a dose of desperation. It is a privilege to walk with others on this path.

It's way past my bedtime, now. I had a friend who used to say, when times were hard, that she was grateful for a night between two days. Tonight, so am I.

Blankets of Grace

Our little corner of the world has been turned upside down of late. We have a newborn baby in our house and we are sleep deprived. 

We have the most giving and kind friends who are bringing food and offering to spend time getting baby snuggles. To be able to take a casserole out of the freezer is wonderful. To put one's head on a pillow and sleep without needing to have an ear out for baby noise is, too. 

Every person who has offered to help I have said yes to. That is a new thing for me. I need help. I know it. I accept it. It feels so much better than trying to be self sufficient with no needs. I've spent far too many years dragging my childhood survival thinking into the here and now; that having no needs keeps one safe. If you only knew how many times I remind myself these days that I am safe. I have a voice. I know how to use it. I am okay.

I have had limited contact with many of my friends, especially in the time I have been off work. There hasn't been the interest or energy for interaction on my part. Depression will do that. I've wondered, and sometimes worried, if that would affect my relationships negatively, believing you have to give in order to get. Wow. I didn't even know I believed that until it popped out onto the keyboard just now. 

It turns out that friendship doesn't always work like that. People have come out of the woodwork to help us. At least that's what it's felt like. Grace upon grace. 

I've spent the winter crocheting baby blankets. A simple pattern that looks beautiful when it's done. One I can do without thinking. Working back and forth, row after row, until something beautiful has been created under my fingertips. Last week one of them was auctioned off for a community fundraiser.

This week one of them cradles my newborn grandson. Another comforts the granddaughter of my friend. Yesterday was three weeks since she passed away. 

No matter how tired one is, if you're lucky, the morning does indeed come. 

And somehow one finds the strength and grace to get up and do what needs to be done. 

With a little help from one's friends. 

Healing

There's been too much going on and not enough energy to write about it. I actually spent a bit of time just now looking for a meme about fatigue because I woke up from a nap just as tired as when I went to sleep. Anyway, I decided to look for something else instead. That hug is for me. And others in my life who need it, including you.

I miss this space. I miss writing to process what is going on. I will return again once there's some spare energy.

Fatigue sucks.
Baby snuggles rock.
Friends are priceless.
Death is sobering.
Meal delivery is a godsend.
Therapists are, too.
Prayer helps.
So do hugs.

Wounds

The service for my friend was this week. A group of us traveled to the foothills of the Rockies to say goodbye to her. I have never cried so much at a funeral.

I let my hurting heart overflow with tears streaming down my face. I had nanoseconds of feelings self conscious but just that, nanoseconds. I told my therapist I've cried more over the death of my friend than any other death I've experienced and she told me it was because I wasn't stuffing my feelings down anymore. A sign of healing.

My mother in law also passed away this week. I have not spent much time with her for years but once she went to the hospital in the first week of March we spent many hours together and then more once she was in hospice. It reminded me all over again why I loved her and gave me new appreciation for who she is as a person. She often had this lovely habit of cupping your face in one of her hands when she greeted you if she hadn't seen you in a long time. She knew how to love well.

At the funeral of my friend, as I went down the receiving line of her siblings and children, meeting many of them for the first time, I came to her son. Her heart broken son. I spontaneously cupped his face in one of my hands as I spoke to him. He has the loveliest gentle soul of a countenance. I will see him again.

There were two of us who journeyed with our friend through her walk with cancer. We knew each other before but had never spent time together outside church events. I cried to her on the way home about how would we see each other now without our shared walk with our friend. She reached over and gripped my hand as my tears fell.

Yesterday there was a knock on my door. I opened it to see her standing there still as could be. She said, "I missed you." I welcomed her in and cried as I told Dearest One about our earlier conversation. She came with an invitation to join a small group of women weekly who get together to support each other in this journey we call life. So I will see her regularly again and it is a joy to think of this.

I hope that journeying with my friend who passed away has taught me that we are all so wounded and if those wounds were visible it would be a kinder world out there. Let it begin with me.

Gratitude

My friend, who I have been accompanying to cancer treatments, passed away this morning. The photo is the last thing she posted on her social media account a few days ago.

I'll just leave it here in her memory. She had the best laugh. She kept a gratitude journal right through her journey with cancer.

She so much wanted to live. I am feeling gutted.

Strength

Watching someone in labour is holy.
Watching your son hold his son for the first time is cry worthy.
Baby snuggles are therapeutic.
You can't take too many photos.
Night shift with a baby is precious.
You forget what sleep deprivation feels like.
Until you don't.
A good meal can restore one's hope.
So can a good sleep.
Hearing a 5 year old make up a song to soothe his newborn cousin and then say, 'that's a love song for babies' makes one's heart grow bigger.

Watching someone confront their biggest fear is holy.
Watching them cry gut wrenching tears makes one cry.
Hugs are therapeutic.
Photos become memories.
Night shift can hold many things.
It can make one tired in body and soul.
A good sleep can't fix a tired soul.
Cooking and baking,
Creating something in the midst of great pain gives a glimmer of hope.
Finding compassion where there used to be none makes one's heart grow bigger.

The journey is worth it.

Grace

I'm just plain tired today. This week has zapped my energy. I woke up with no reserves left so I'm doing my best to put self care front and center today.

Two of us waited together while our friend got fluid drained from her abdomen yesterday. We cried. Then we cried some more with our friend when she was done. We have no crystal ball but we sense that time is short. It was hard.

I spent the evening with my mother in law last night. She is a bit confused but her long term memory is good. I don't waste energy correcting her in times such as when she introduces me as her sister in law. We visit and have long silences. I am grateful to have cultivated the patience for silence. I don't have to fill empty space.

She has no idea that her time is short. She muses aloud for where she might go live next. She asks my opinion on how to cover her bald head when she goes to church. I don't bother telling her that there will be no more trips to her church where church rules insist that she cover her head. She worries that the flowers on her little cap will be seen as too much by some people. She told me that some of the people she worships with, the ones who think they will be the only ones in heaven, are stupid. I never know what's going to come out of her mouth.

I tiptoed out of her room once she had been asleep for a while. Mercifully she stayed sleeping. Earlier this week, when I was trying to leave while she slept, she woke up and called my name. I went back and she told me to say hello to Dearest One and my children from her. There is a propriety that is lovely in her generation. Manners. My mother on her death bed thanked her sister for coming to visit.

I am (perhaps too much so) a stickler when it comes to my grandchildren learning manners. They have no idea it's because I struggle to remember to use those basic social niceties. I've tended to bark orders and be demanding. That has softened with age and healing, really. But I still have to work at it.

Years ago, when my children were small, my brother in law was staying with us for a while. I came downstairs to the breakfast table and starting barking out something or other to one of my kids. He took a sip of his coffee, put down his cup and said to me, "Good morning to you, too."

Today I am grateful for being given enough days to grow and change. And tonight I will definitely be grateful for my bed.

Live

What a grueling weekend. So much travel compressed in what felt like, a short amount of time. One of Dearest One and my favourite things to do together is go on a road trip so that part was lovely. We talked deep things. We belly laughed. There were tears. Sad about the death that happened. Sad about my mother in law and her health. Inside her nearly 90 year old body she is that little girl over there jumping rope.

This morning I will go sit with her. She was moved unexpectedly to hospice over the weekend. I suspect that the hospital needed her bed just as she desperately needed a bed after spending 3 nights in ER. She is waiting to hear about the funeral of her son in law and so we will chat and I will ask her for memories to be written down on special cards I brought home from the funeral for that purpose. In speaking with my sister in law she is very much looking forward to reading these memories of her husband.

My sister in law and I held hands across the lunch table with our arms outstretched towards one another for a good while. It was the closest we were going to get to a hug due to space limitations and the situation. We then had a conversation while mostly oblivious to people around us. We were interrupted several times and I watched her face as people squeezed in between chairs to get to her in order to offer condolences. I watched as she dealt with the onslaught of well meaning and good hearted people. It looked exhausting.

We are blessed with oodles of nieces and nephews and it worked out that we sat among some of them at the post service meal. Mostly we encourage them in their parenting. That they are likely doing better than they give themselves credit for. I often share the story of a friend telling me, when I was the parent of young children, that there is no A given in parenting, only E for effort. At the time I desperately wanted an A and felt I was getting an F. So many parents do.

This generation is more relaxed than the one Dearest One grew up in. He was raised in an ultra conservative religion where you can be in a congregation numbering in the hundreds and never hear a peep out of an infant or a child. We talked with a niece and her husband yesterday about the kind of parenting that matters so much more than if your two year old can sit quietly in church. We listened to their struggles. We did our best to make inner space to hear what was on their heart. I'd like to think we connected.

And so here it is Monday morning. A full week ahead. My heart hurting for my sick friend who was in such pain and despair last night that, had it not been pitch black and her home over 2 hours away, I would've gotten in my car to go to her. We were both crying miles apart. I was scared she wouldn't be here this morning.

This week has some heavy stuff in it. I hope for the grace to walk lightly.

Friday

This is my second day of quiet after a busy start to the week and ahead of a busy weekend. I chose to do nothing yesterday except make supper. It was a relief not to get in the car and go anywhere. I read. I listened to a podcast. I crocheted some more on a blanket I'm making for a charity auction.

I cried this week with my friend when she found out that chemo is not working and her cancer has spread. There are moments when it feels like the world stands still.

Yesterday family met with the palliative care doctor and plans were made to move my mother in law to hospice next week. She cried. She has always said she is 16 years old inside. She has been young at heart the whole time I've known her. We hadn't told her about the death of her son in law because she was supposed to have a risky procedure and we wanted to spare her the stress beforehand. They went to do it and found what they think is cancer on her heart. The risks outweighed the benefit of the procedure. She was told yesterday about her son in law. She cried.

I had to stop writing for a few minutes because typing all that made me cry. I love my mother in law. She is the last one living of our parents. There was a long time when she felt like more of a mother to me than my own mother did. She dug deep and loved me when I was not particularly lovable in words or actions. She showed me there could be loving mother in laws in this world.

We will head out to see youngest son and his wife tomorrow. No baby yet. Maybe not for a while. I finished this baby's blanket this week. It's not quite a record but there was one grand baby who was three before I finished her blanket.

We will then go to the funeral of Dearest One's brother in law. His sister lost her husband and welcomed a new grand baby within the space of two days this week. Often this world makes no sense.

Oldest grandchild will come for a sleepover tonight. There is nothing like learning to live in the present than hanging out with a child. I can look forward to laughter. There is always laughter when life includes grandchildren.

Live It Fully

It's been another full week and now a full weekend. All about people and relationships.

I started typing that yesterday and life got busy and now it's Monday morning. The moon shining through the window woke me up. When we lived in the country the moon would shine directly on my face at one point during the night. I cannot think of a better alarm clock. Except grandchildren.

Yesterday oldest grandson woke me up by crawling into our bed. We turned on the TV and watched some kind of racing (NASCAR?) for a bit before making our way downstairs in anticipation of having brunch with his parents. After we were done our meal, and sitting around the table, I felt a kinship with my mother which made me miss her keenly. Brunch at her house with kids and grandkids most likely did for her spirit what it does for mine.

Later I talked with both granddaughters on the phone. The youngest one is just learning to talk and she loves to say, Hi Nana to me like a record stuck on repeat. I so wish these two lived closer. It's like an ache in my heart not to be able to see them more often. I love that video chats keep us connected in between times.

Youngest grandson is on his way. His parents were visiting us this weekend when it became apparent that he was going to have a March birthday instead of an April one. That necessitated an air ambulance ride to the largest centre many hours south of us. I thought he was going to have a St. Patrick's Day birthday but that didn't happen. He and his parents are in a great hospital and maybe today will be his birth day. I haven't slept with my cell phone beside my bed since my parents were alive. I far prefer anticipating a birth.

My mother in law is very ill in the hospital and I've spent hours at her bedside the past ten days. Pain medication has evaporated her filter so conversation with her is very entertaining. We are getting to hear what she really thinks about life and people. (It makes me glad that I generally speak my mind sans drugs. I don't want to be 90 years old and having people see the real me on my death bed.) She will undergo a procedure this week that has a high risk to it. We are hopeful it will give her some relief. We are almost 130 people counting spouses and several levels of grandchildren. Her room has been full of visitors and there was something special about being among 6 of her adult grandchildren in her hospital room the other day. What better legacy can you leave than one that says you were well loved?

Kinder

This past week has been so full. People. Circumstances. Sadness. Joy. The days held all of it.

I didn't feel like having company come stay for a few days. For the first time ever I looked around the house and saw the mess that it was and thought to myself  the hell with it and, other than making sure the guest bedroom and bathroom were clean, I welcomed distant relatives into my house as I live in it. Not as I would like them to think I do. There simply wasn't any left over emotional or physical energy to care.

The day they arrived my afternoon had been full with a friend whose days are limited, while she had chemo and then a medical procedure. I'd spent the morning at a psychiatric evaluation. I went into it with an attitude that the psychiatrist was on my side and I had an open mind despite being told by several in-the-know people to avoid this particular doctor if at all possible. He turned out to be kind and caring and attentive. I felt heard. I don't have to see him again. That's a bonus.

I enjoyed our visit with our guests quite a bit. It turned out that it didn't matter in the end that we all had to step over toys and socks and odds and ends. The dining room table was clear and we had comfy chairs to sit in after meals. I didn't plan meals and winged it. If you know me at all you know that is not my style. And it turned out fine. You open cupboards and your fridge and figure it out. We didn't go hungry.

We had a few hours of respite after they left before Dearest One's elderly mom was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. I've spent many hours at the hospital since then. The emergency ward is a busy and interesting place. A baby born right outside the doors of the hospital. Emergencies of all kinds coming and going. At one point there were so many paramedics and I heard one of them ask if the hospital had been put on alert so that no one else could be brought to ER by ambulance until things calmed down.

My mother in law has a wonderful sense of humour. She had 11 of her 12 kids in  not much more than a dozen years. I like to imagine her humour saved her sanity more than once. It has been a privilege to sit at her bedside and visit, including the moments when her mind wanders and her facts are all mixed up. Sometimes that is entertaining and sometimes it is heartbreaking. She has been kind and gracious to me my whole married life despite her trying to talk Dearest One out of marrying me the night before we got married. Once those vows were said she welcomed me as a daughter and treated me as such. I know she must have cried in private and prayed a lot. We have long enjoyed one another's company.

And now as I finish writing this it is Monday morning. There is a full day ahead and then some quiet days following. It is all good. It is all a gift.

Breathing Deeply

The other day my massage therapist was working on my rib cage and man, it sure hurt. She commented that when a person has spent an extended period of time in freeze mode then, due to shallow breathing, muscles and ribs tend to stick to one another. I have 56 years of doing that so no wonder it hurt to have those tissues worked on. She was working on my mastectomy side where there isn't a lot of extra tissue anyway.

I've been working on my breathing. Spending some time daily practicing breathing deeply. I'm hoping there are long term benefits to be had. At the best of times the low oxygen level in my blood is borderline for qualifying for government sponsored oxygen supplementation.

Sometimes in sessions with my therapist big emotions surface and she reminds me to breathe through it and let the feelings flow through. My default is to hold my breath and panic. Disassociate. I am slowly learning that it's really true that I survived a shit ton of trauma and that there is nothing to be afraid of in the here and now.

Since starting medication I can wake in the night now and calm my amygdala down by reminding it there is nothing for me to spend time worrying about so go back to sleep. And most of the time that is exactly what I do. The more times I can remind myself I am safe, either in the night or the day, the more I have a chance of living in the now. The more chance I'll have of redirecting my thoughts when I get triggered by something in the past.

The more I can shift from freeze mode, the more automatic it will become to breathe deeply.

A Choice

A few weeks ago I texted my therapist on a Sunday afternoon and said, "You're posting such good stuff online today and I am refraining from commenting oh fuck.

This picture was one of them. I'd rather grow exponentially in an easy peasy way with no swear words in the mix, wouldn't you?

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, and observing what was occupying my mind (which might interfere with sleep), I realized that I was consumed with other people and their problems. Everything from relationship issues to teenage children and a couple of people with terminal diagnoses. Into my mind popped that poster where it has a list in an inner circle of things I can control (me) and an outer circle with a list of things I can't (others). Ha. Oh fuck I thought to myself. Everything that was taking up space in my mind was all stuff I had no control over. Well, then. I used another tool my therapist has taught me and that is to put stuff that is overwhelming me into an imaginary container to look at later, often in the safety of her office. I regularly put thoughts in and take them out like a bank card being spit out of  an ATM. In, out. In, out. Ad nauseum. But sometimes I manage not to.

This is where one is supposed to write that they put everything out of their mind instantly and life was so much better. Ta da!

Ya. Life isn't so straight forward. Sometimes, I wonder if it could be. But recognizing that worrying about stuff I had no control over, doing the same old thing, and realizing I had a choice. That? That helped. It felt like a sliver of light shining through a crack.

I slept just fine.

Be You

I keep journals for my grandchildren, expressly for the purpose of telling them to be everything the quote in that picture says to be. Be you is what I keep writing to them in so many different ways. I note little stories about them. Things they say that stick with me. I tell them again and again that I hope they will always have the courage to be who they were created to be. That who they are is enough.

When I was growing up my goal was to be perfect. In my mind being perfect would keep me safe. Perfectly invisible would've been even better.

I was about seven when I shuffled across the kitchen floor in shiny red shoes whose black rubber bottoms had separated from the rest of the shoe. I tried my best not to lift my feet as I went in order to avoid being caught with broken shoes. Eventually I nearly tripped on the flap of wayward rubber and that caught my parents' attention.

My default pattern was to think I was at fault for anything and everything and that included having shoes that fell apart. Sometimes I feel sad for the little girl that I was, the one who didn't feel like she could go to her parents and tell them, through no fault of her own, that she needed new shoes. And I know my parents would feel sad that I had internalized my world that way.

For all the things my parents got wrong, there was one thing they got so right, and I remain grateful to this day for it. They recognized my talent for writing and then encouraged it.

Not that they said a whole lot about it to me. But there was the essay written on two sided foolscap, from when I was in grade 2, that was kept tucked in the little cupboard beside the stove the whole time I was growing up. Folded up like a letter, it was housed alongside pink stomachache medicine, band aids and cod liver oil. I took it with me when I left home and have mourned losing it in a move during my first year of marriage. I've long been intrigued that my writing style was the same as a seven year old as it is now at 56. I not only had something to say, but a way of saying it that has stayed with me all these years.

In preparation for heading off to college my parents bought me an electric typewriter as a graduation present. (An IBM no less!) I loved it. My journalism prof made us type assignments on triplicates. There was something comforting about inserting those sheets and turning the roller until the top of the triplicate peeked above the keys. I lugged that typewriter across the country and back. It indeed traveled by plane, train and automobile before I sold it several years later in order to pay the rent. It felt like a whole lot of hopes and dreams went down the driveway with my typewriter. I could never bring myself to tell my parents that I'd sold it.

I think they were disappointed when I went directly from getting a college diploma to marriage without giving a career much of a thought. They never spoke to me about it, but I sensed they would've liked it if I had gone on to write for a newspaper and honed my skills. I would've most likely lost any job in short order due to my love of booze and a sarcastic mouth back then. I doubt that having a no one is going to tell me what to do attitude would have gone over very well with coworkers let alone a boss. 

Eventually I did freelance work for a farm paper when I was pregnant with my third baby. Then, with three kids under 4, it's understandable that writing took a backseat to the mounds of cloth diapers that were always waiting to be folded on my couch. It would be over a decade before I thought about writing again.

But my love of it never left me. And so you see me on this blog, type, typing away. It feeds something within me. It's a bonus when it feeds something within you as well.

And slowly, with doing the hard work in therapy, I am learning that who I am is enough. I can look at that picture up there and try to embrace it for myself. For my quirky seven year old self and for flawed 56 year old me and all the beautiful, magical and unique ages in between.

I have a new pair of red shoes in my closet now, too.

Emotional Bandwidth

When I read this quote the other day I thought to myself, this describes my current journey in a nutshell.

That word "curious" keeps showing up in things and catching my attention. I've tended to be curious about all kinds of things in my life. People watching is one of my favourite activities. Dearest One knows I'd like a word by word account of many of his conversations with other people. I'm endlessly curious about relationships and conversations.

I'm learning to be curious about my relationship with myself and the conversations that are going on in my head. Watching them without judgement. Trying to, anyway. When I went to treatment I learned that 95% of  a person's self talk is negative. I learned to shut that shit down. But, like most inner changes, there are layers upon layers of shit to discover and discard.

The amount of self loathing I've experienced while off work has been through the roof. My inner chatter void of anything positive. Pathetic. Hopeless. Lazy. Not trying. Not trying hard enough. Useless. Thankfully Dearest One has been down this path himself and there hasn't been anything I've said out loud about the thoughts swirling in my head that he hasn't been able to relate to. I see how grounded he is most of the time now and it gives me hope for myself.

It's been 11 days since I looked at that first half of a pill in my hand and said to it, "okay little pill, do your magic." Forty years of resistance to taking such a step challenged when I swallowed it.

My brain is so much quieter. My feelings of being overwhelmed have shrunk considerably. My sleep - oh Lordy - I need my sleep. I've had five nights of solid sleep. What a difference that makes.

Here's to expanding bandwidth. To being wrong and having enough support to make a different decision. A life changing one.

The Guts of Our Lives

One of the gifts of going to a family event  yesterday was visiting with a family member who is a kindred spirit. Our daily lives, political and religious views are miles apart. None of that matters. 

We hadn't seen each other in such a long time. We went from how are you? to the guts of our lives in the space it took to ask the question. She was really the only one I had hoped for a good visit with and even though we only had 15 minutes together, it was food for my soul.

We laughed, we cried, we hugged. It was good.

Those people you can let down your guard with are such a gift. The ones who really not only want to know how you are but can absorb it without the need to fix or advise or do anything other than listen with their heart and respond from their soul. I am fortunate to have people like that in my life. I hope you do in yours, too.

Capacity

Friday I had an appointment with my physiotherapist. She has a unique way of doing what she does and her intuition has helped heal not only physical pain but has facilitated emotional release for me as well.

Once, when I told her I felt like I was walking around with a flinch just under the surface, she scanned my body with her eyes and pinpointed where she thought the flinch was stuck in my body . As she pressed there I burst into tears and the flinch disappeared. I'd file that under airy fairy shit except it's happened many times over.

Last week I missed a step while going down our entryway stairs and managed to whack my head right in the corner of the wall. First one side of my head hit and then the other. I landed with quite a thud. It was harder for Dearest One to see me fall than for me to experience it. I got up and carried on with my day. Except for a bit of a headache and some sore muscles I felt fine.

It's unusual that I didn't hurt myself worse. I am grateful for a body that is getting better at healing. Or perhaps not holding onto to injury so much.

When I relayed my falling experience to my physiotherapist she did her magic and fixed my neck. When we talked about how weird, but good, it was that I didn't injure myself much she looked at me and with a smile said, "You're not fragile." She repeated it for emphasis, "You're not fragile."