Yay Me

 Winter is a bad time for fresh air, exercise, fresh food, and many other things. Chronic ailments seem to intensify, fears are exaggerated, and nothing and no one feels quite in sync with the rest of Life. 

So, it has been winter.

The Fall (Autumn) was long and dreary. The run-up to the holidays is too often for too many a reminder of loss and loneliness. After the holidays, the darkness seems to set in, just when the outer darkness has begun to reverse itself. Maybe the powers of dark, having failed at holding the outer places is fighting for a foothold within? 

For a while now, I have had bad days and goods, with an average of one day a week being not worth getting out of bed for. (Except, y'know, going to the bathroom and such so the bed stays a comfortable place.)

But it's a new year, a new time, a new life, ha-ha, now. Time to do better. The new spring is coming. Sunlight is returning to the earth. 

It is time for change.

Change is hard to do at any time.

It's really hard to do from under the covers, in the bed, in the house with curtains closed and artificial or forced heat. 

I decided a while back -- can't recall when-- that if I could do nothing else, I would try to get at least a little bit of natural light every day. (Translation: open the curtains.)

Took a long time. Goes against the bad days. Hard to do. Every day it's not done, the next day is even more difficult. 

But I have done it, for a couple of weeks now. 

Not only the open curtains, which necessitate getting out of bed. 

I have got up, got dressed, and opened the corner and sat by the window every single day.

I didn't always stay up for very long, sometimes less than an hour, but I did get those things done for at least a while. For an impressive (to me) number of days in a row. 

There's nothing wrong with small goals. Victories are often an accumulation of them. 

And they are doable.

If you're in a bad place, start small. 

If you're in a dark place, maybe just open your eyes, whether it will make any difference to your seeing or not. It MAY make a difference to YOU. (It may not, but you won't know if you don't try.)

No matter what, it is an incredible sense of achievement, when you do it, first for five minutes, then ten; and eventually maybe two days in a row. 

Look at you!

You decided to do something, and then YOU DID IT! You are not a nobody nothing who can't ever do anything. 

ENJOY YOUR VICTORY.

starting over again.

 knee, back, knee, weather, car, coasts, depression, life, and everything else.

I'm still here and still trying.

It has become impossible for me to walk on a paved path in the woods.

This is NOR ACCEPTABLE.

But, between breaking and being fixed, I am now having to start all over again. The horrible gasping for air, even though I'm not really out of breath (figure that out; I can't.) has returned and I have to build up my endurance again.

I've spent my whole entire life starting over.

Could I please finish one  thing before starting the next one?

Could it please b a new goal, not a repeat of the last half dozen goals?

Ah well, it's better to have small attainable goals. That's what they say, anyway. Notso sure if I agree, but I have nothing else.

And, for all that I look like a lump of wobbly fat that does nothing, that's a difficult and boring way to live. If you even want to call that living. 

I don't. 

nope, not fit for anything

 It's been difficult, and it keeps getting worse. First my back and then when i finally got into walking again, and was gradually increasing my endurance, my knee went all wonky.

Sounds like more lazy-daisy excuses, but it's subjectively (or is it objectively?) true. I have MRIs to prove it. It may need surgery, and probably will, sooner or later. For now we are trying interim stuff, which, so far, is working well. I'm at least able to walk around my house without holding onto the walls and the furniture.

It's hurricane/headache season and it is miserably hot outside. Maybe it will rain. Maybe it won't. Probably it wont.

My hanging baskets that get full sun have been baked. 

My birdbath is scummy. Yuck.

Some of my newer plantings have not survived. 

I'm so tired. I sleep too much. I hurt too much.

On top of that.it seems that people are dying all around me. Old, young, contemporary. It's getting really sad, especially when it is the unborn and the newly born that are dying. Friends and their families are suffering.

Not from the stupid virus; not from the heat, not from any one thing. But everywhere there is death.

Of course, it always is, but usually more remotely. And , yes, these little spates of tragedies have happened before. 

Wake me when it's over.

If you must.

6/1/2021

 wow, has it been that long. I apologize to my loyal readers. The end of May was rough, It was completing the first year cycle of my daughter's death. Believe me, it was a difficult time. I tried to keep busy. I did keep busy. But every day it seemed more raw.

When it happened, it felt, for the longest time, as if I were inside one of my reality-straddling dream. And I wanted it to be. The days I didn't spend just breathing, going to the bathroom, and waiting to go back to sleep, I don't even remember. 

The world was closing down around me, but I hardly realized. It had already ended, in some ways, for me. So, I guess I was closing down, too.

As this anniversary approached I had to deal with the reality. I had to admit to it, look it in the face, and somehow get through it.

As I said, I have been keeping busy. My knee got all arthritic, which was really fun when the April Showers finally came -- late, like everything else in this craziness. Made it difficult to stand, to walk, to do anything. My car had a nervous breakdown, or maybe a psychotic break with delusions. (Or perhaps I was the one having delusions, etc.)

But I tried, I forced myself every day to move around, to get at least one chore done. 

I usually did it.

But May is here, even though Tammy still isn't. May will come again and she won't.

And I am here.

I must do better.

That is all.

And I am indeed trying, and have been trying through these last few weeks.

5/18/21

 Had my grandkids over the weekend. Attended a birthday party for one of my brothers's grandchild. Walked to the store with kids. David R, the kids's dad, changed my tire, so now when I drive it's with a baby tire on my left front, and the muffler clop-clopping down the street, and everything moaning and groaning. They'll hear me coming, that's for sure!

My diet is pretty steady for now, staying consistent. Weight is steady and going down, but in small increments. So small that it would take a digital scale to tell the difference. That's probably as it should be.

I have been doing some work in my flower beds as well, too. There's one I can't get in because of my knee, but the other two are doing okay. 

I'[m beginning to get restless and have an unfinished feeling if I don't get in a certain level of activity every day. That's probably a good thing, too.

Summer is rolling in like a steam roller, with the requisite humidity. I may have to move walking time to later in the day. Or perhaps earlier. 

5/11/2021

 here I am again. Finally getting my numbers under some kind of control. I'm at least more aware of the why when my sugar goes high and doesn't want to come down. Exercise helps a lot with that, by the way.

I'm doing fairly well about exercising or walking every day, and have even thought about doing both. But I am still very much at the stage of having to force myself to do one or the other, so maybe I'll put that off for a while. 

Hope I get over that reluctance soon, and I may, as I'm showing signs of minimal weight loss. I think part of the problem is that there is so much of me to haul around. 

Working with the flowers helps also. That's something I can do in small bits of time, and it definitely has immediate and pleasing results. I still haven't quite figured out how to manipulate me around my arthritic knee, but some attempts are semi-successful, for a minute or two. Since this pain doesn't look to be going anywhere, I had best learn to work around it or in spite of it.

May 8

A goal accomplished.  On Thursday the 6th of May, I not only walked around the block, I did so in a reasonable amount of time. (Still twice what it should have been, but better than I expected.) I even managed to do one long (for me; proportionately for the distance) stretch without stopping to breathe. 

Unfortunately for me, every time I went out it got cold and dark. I don't mind walking in the rain, but the rain lately has been mighty cold, and I didn't want to risk getting a cold shower I'd have to plod through to get back home. 

So I did my whole routine of back exercises all at one time. That takes a while, and a good amount of energy. Also, I hope it will loosen my hip where it kind of locks up, but not exactly. It just doesn't want to stretch.

My knee is still painful, although there is an ebb and flow to that. It also keeps raining in the night, even if the day is bright. Which it is not at times. 

Today I did the half block, after I had watched my friend put my flowers in the ground for me. The ones I bought Monday were starting to droop in spite of being rained on every night.  I also planted a few flowers she brought me. 

We sat on my porch and just visited for a while, which was as nice a giving as her saving my plants. 

After she left, I planted a couple more things she'd brought, and then I watered ones she hadn't got earlier. 

It was a nice way to spend some time.