Goals // Week 49

This week I have a lot to get done both at work and at home and of course it is the worst week for so many projects and goals. My health isn’t good and my emotional state is even shakier. So, I have to learn to prioritise, to see what is really important, and to let the rest go. This week I want to:

Advocate for myself. The symptoms of ulcerative colitis can be embarrassing to talk about which makes it hard to explain to people what my limitations are and why but I have to do it. I have to be clear about my needs and I have to stand firm when they try to guilt me into doing what at best will cause me more pain and ate worse cause me further embarrassment.

Update: It was hard, but I did it. I learned my lesson from the week before and asked for help, only did what way my work to do and delegated the rest. I even took a day off! I called the doctor too and made sure I got help from her and, most importantly, I didn’t allow myself not to do what I needed to for me either.

 Rest as much as possible. I have a busy scheduled ahead of me this week and if I want to have any hope of getting through it I have to take the time to rest when I can. I’ve got to lower my expectations. I’ve got to go to bed on time. I’ve got to stay home if I need to. It’s going to be hard. I always feel bad when I have to rest. I worry people will think I am lazy, lying, or weak, but I can’t worry about what people think anymore. If I don’t rest now, I will only be worse off later.

Update: I probably still worked more than I should have but when I got home at night I put myself on the couch with a heating pad, plenty of Gatorade, and a light dinner. I wasn’t able to get much cooking or cleaning in but that’s ok. Soon I will be back at it but for now, rest, rest, rest!

Not feel guilty for poor eating habits. Food doesn’t always make me feel better and I know that the longer I am in a flare the more avoidant of meals I will become. As long as I eat enough to take my medications and supplements on time and try my best to eat food with some nutritional value that will be good enough. I don’t have to do more and if I slip and do less it’s okay.

Update: I was hardly able to finish my meals and when the hunger and cravings came on I ate a lot of things that weren’t so easy on my gut. I could have done better, but it is hard and whenever we are fighting against ourselves mistakes are inevitable and laying on too much guilt won’t help. I messed up, but it’s ok. I messed up, but I’m doing better all the time.

Drink my coffee after I eat breakfast, if at all. I have to be easy on my belly now and filling it with acidic liquid and caffeine first thing in the morning is probably the worst thing I could be doing. I know if I quit cold turkey I’ll feel even cruddier so I’m going to slowly push back the time I drink it and then slowly lower the amount I drink. I love coffee but it has to become something of a treat more than a daily necessity.

Update: I sort of did this I sipped tiny amounts before breakfast a few days but almost every day I hardly had any coffee at all. In fact I blame the migraine from last Tuesday on a caffeine withdrawal.

Finish my resume. I’m running out of time, and excuses and the there will be no end to the depth of my disappointment if I do not finish this on time. I’m being given an opportunity though I’m not sure when exactly it will come. I only know that it will be soon. So I need to be ready now because soon can become now any minute and catch me unprepared. Get it done, now!

Update: I suck. I’m disappointed in myself but somehow that isn’t enough to change me. I will not fail though. I will not lose out because I refused to simply finish. I’m scared and I have to stop being scared that’s all there is to it.

This week I won’t ask too much of myself. I’m keeping the list short and leaving plenty of time for what I need to do and what I know I can do. This week I will sooth and forgive myself when things get hard or when I can’t complete a goal. I will keep my long-term health in mind and take care of myself first for the good of everyone.

P.S. For a look at how I fared last week check out my updated post for Week 48.

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

If We Were Having Coffee // Coping with What’s to Come

Hello and happy Sunday! Thanks for stopping by for a bit of conversation and catching up over a cup of delicious coffee.

I’ve been awake since very early this morning but I have not been up and moving about as long. I woke early with pain and laid awake in the dark doing my best to breathe deeply and to relax as much as I could until the pain passed. It did, but the ordeal ate up 2 hours of sleep of my day. I’m not allowing myself to dwell on that disappointment though. I have too much to do today and I know what little energy I have will not wait for me to wallow, no matter how much coffee I drink. I’m up. I’m okay, and it’s time to start the day.

So, please, pull up a chair and grab yourself a cup.  It may be too cold out to open the windows but the sky is clear, and the sun is shining so we can turn up the heat, sit near the windows and pretend. I’ve got the French press out and some sweet vanilla almond milk though I’m half tempted to try using eggnog. Let’s talk about last week!

“So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.”

― Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that last week was the shortest work week I’ve had in a long time. All weekend we’d been hearing the forecast grow more and more dire. By Monday morning we were hearing the possibility of 6 – 16 inches of snow overnight into Tuesday. All day my coworkers and I were buzzing with thoughts of a snow day away from work and an extra day added to our Thanksgiving vacation. I stayed up late after work waiting for the call I knew, I hoped, would come, and finally, it did. I went to bed early planning to get up early so I would have more snow day hours to enjoy.

I did wake up early but Tuesday I really began to feel poorly. I had been for a while, but that is how ulcerative colitis comes on, slowly and then all at once. I’d emailed my doctor already, and she ordered me to the lab for testing and to increase my medications back to where they were before our last visit. All my progress undone. With the snow there was no way I could get to the lab, so I spent the day resting and planning the rest of the week instead.

Wednesday I meant to go to work, but I didn’t have to go in and I figured why stress myself when I’m already feeling shaky and weak, you know? So I rested some more and planned a Thanksgiving meal for two while my wife spent the day with her mother. In the evening we shopped for our snacks, sweets, meat and sides, and plenty of drinks. For the night before a holiday and the day after a historical snow storm the stores were surprisingly calm and still well stocked. We found everything we needed and a whole lot, maybe too much, more.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that my family was a bit scattered this year. We’re all feeling unwell, tired, stressed, and maybe a little down. We’ve been far away from each other, mentally and physically. This year we spent our holiday apart, each of us in our own homes, or with the families of our in-laws. I was sad about it but we needed it too. We needed the rest not the hustle and bustle, the expectation, the stress, the burden.

So, it was my wife and I alone and we made as special as wee could. We ate, and ate, and ate, and drank, and drank, and drank. We cooked lamb chops, mashed sweet potatoes, roasted carrots, and warmed some Colorado country bread. We watched Star Wars movies, and read books, and just enjoyed a day outside of time for a while. I had much to be thankful for.

The next day, armed with a list and a plan, we ventured out for Black Friday shopping. We left late to avoid the crowds, but it was still crazy out there. The shopping itself wasn’t so bad. There was plenty left on the shelves for everyone, but the lines were long that more than once we gave up items we’d found simply because we didn’t want to wait to purchase them. I did my best to keep in high spirits. We didn’t get all of our holiday shopping done but we made a significant dent and we might have found a few deals for ourselves that day too.

Since then I’ve been feeling worse and worse so I spent all of Saturday recouping from the holiday and all the shopping. I got the laundry done, and I got my Week’s End post up and my Currently // November post finished. I finished reading The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and watching episode 4 of Star Wars too. It was a good day.

Today was good too. I saw my family for brunch to make up for spending the holiday alone. My mom is fighting a cold so my sister made the eggs. My sister-in-law made muffins. My wife made the pancakes, and I made the bacon. We listened to music that was way too loud while we cooked and watched Disney shorts while we ate. I’ve missed them. I’ve missed all my family lately. I think in the new year I’m going to make more of an effort. I’m getting too old to let time pass between us this way.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that In between the snow, and shopping, and all the eating, and drinking, the family visit, and the relaxing I made it to the lab for the tests my doctor ordered and I’m hoping by the end of the coming week I’ll have answers and a new plan. I don’t want to dwell too much on my health but right now my body won’t let me forget. It fills up every moment with either exhaustion, pain, or worry.

I’m doubly disappointed because it may be my own fault that my symptoms are flaring. I didn’t take my medication as consistently as I was supposed too and I did not try hard enough to keep my stress levels down. I worked too hard, and I let myself pretend too easily that I was normal. I’m not normal. This won’t ever go away, and I can’t let myself forget that.

Of course, there is a chance this isn’t my fault at all but I’m not sure whether that makes things better or worse. If it isn’t my fault, then I have no control. If it isn’t my fault, then my body continues to fail me and I continue to run out of treatment options.

It’s best not to think about it right now, but like I said, it’s terribly hard not to.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that next week will no doubt be a hard one. There is another class of employees are starting which I will be training them and that means long hours and a lot of work for the foreseeable future, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I only have a few weeks left to go before it’s Christmas break anyway and that time will be so full of not just work but shopping and fun events that I know it will fly by.

I plan to talk to my coworkers and explain my need for scheduled breaks and evenly distributed work while I work on getting well again. I’m going to take real lunches, away from my desk. I’m going to ask for help, delegate, and, if I have to, if things get worse, I’ll check out all together and leave it to others to get done.

The time I have, the time I take for myself, I plan to use to read and to write, as usual. I’ve gotten through my last few books pretty quickly and I have a few more that I really want to finish a few more before the year ends. I’m also slowly plugging away at a couple of Zen and Pi drafts and there are posts to catch up on here. I bought a newspaper last week too and I’m eager to comb it for poetry finds. I need to create. I need to make something for me in order to cope with what is to come.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that it’s late, much later than I expected it would be when we finally got to chat. The day got away from me and I know I won’t be able to keep my eyes open or the conversation going much longer. I have just enough energy left to prepare for tomorrow and that’s it.

I hope you had a good week. I hope that your holiday was filled with warmth and belonging. I hope you found much to be thankful for and that gratitude continues to be a concept you practice in your day to day life.

Until next time.

D’Evils // SiR

Written for the #WeekendCoffeeShare link-up.

Photo by Alex Loup on Unsplash

I can hardly believe a new month has started already. I hate December but I’m excited by it too. It’s the last step, the last struggle, before a new beginning, a new year filled with potential and surprise. I’m anxious to get through the end and ready, so, so ready for all that potential and surprise.

I wish I had been a better blogger in November for National Blog Posting Month but I think, having learned the lesson for the hundredth time now, blogging challenges just aren’t for me. I can’t commit and I am terrible at community interaction. I did find something else that looked promising and, of course, I found it too late. “NaNoDoMore” is a list of things that you aren’t meant to get through in a month. The challenge is to try something new. I like that and though the challenge is over, I’m thinking seriously of giving one or two items a go on my own.

I’m also thinking that it’s time I made blogging my secondary writing outlet and start using it to fuel a greater project and not as an end in itself. NaNoDoMore feels like it’s about more than blogging. It’s about being a writer and working to find a path to the kind of writing you want to do rather than spinning your wheels, doing the same things you have been doing, and getting nowhere. It’s a place to find, or rule out, a start. I’m going to need a lot more of that.

Currently // November 2019: A Month of Waiting for What Comes Next

“The world is tired, the year is old,
The faded leaves are glad to die…” 

― Sara Teasdale, “November”

Time flows strangely in November. The month passes slowly and then all at once it is here and gone and over. It is a month of waiting for what comes next. The time is spent in a joyous and terrible state of anticipation and anxiety waiting for the holiday rush and stress to begin. At the end we are in worked up into such a frenzy we can barely think. We gorge ourselves, indulge ourselves, we’re drunk and merry and tired, and still waiting, still waiting, on what more December will bring.

And while we were warm and waiting, merry and full inside, the beauty of autumn passed and the dreary and drab look of cold and death settled over the world. November is when winter really begins to dominate, to show it’s strength, to lash out in a strange insecurity. Soon it will settle, when it no longer fears the return of summer’s warmth nor the hope of spring’s return. Soon we will all settle into a duality of happiness and hopelessness.

I am doing my best this year not to let that cold hopelessness seep into my bones. I’m brining the memory of summer with me and letting it warm me whenever I begin to feel low. November need not be all waiting. This year I wrote, and I read, I got out into the world more than most Novembers. I found much to be grateful for and let my accomplishments outshine my failures. I learned not to let the snow or the freezing temperatures keep me down. I found beauty in the season and I hope to find beauty in the next too.

But before I do, here is what I am currently…

Writing every single day. This month I read Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing and I was reminded what it felt like to both take my writing seriously and to have fun with it. I was reminded of when I used to wake up in the middle of the night to jot down ideas and how excited I was to share them no matter how ugly or jarring my words were. I miss simply enjoying the work. I miss considering it work! So, going forward I am refocused. I am not thinking of what a writer should be, or even of the writer I want to be. I am simply being the writer I am right now. I’m writing what is in my head and heart now, what excites me now, what feels good to finally say, right now.

Making cut up and blackout poems and collages, still. I had stopped last month thinking that these little pieces I created were rather pointless and dumb but my wife has convinced me otherwise recently so I am back at it. This month I cleaned up my side of the “creativity room” separated my space into a writing space on one side and an art space on the other. Going forward it’ll be easier for me to slip into “art mode” and to share more of my work in the coming year as it improves.

Planning for the new year. The last month of the year begins tomorrow and I think the best use of the days leading up to 2020 are to spend them figuring out my goals, priorities, expectations, and obstacles. I want to have clear ideas for projects and at least a basic idea of the steps to take, how to spend my time, and what to do when I fall behind. I want to take my failures and their lessons with me next year but not as baggage. I want to see my weakness clearly and plan how I might overcome my most disappointing and persistent shortcoming going forward.

Reading The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Moral Letters to Lucilius: Volume 1 by Seneca. I’m almost done with both actually and in addition to finishing Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and, as I already mentioned, Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, plus the two more for December: Ethics by Baruch Spinoza and The Plague by Albert Camus, should put me just 10 books behind my 2019 goal. That’s a lot but I’m choosing to focus on the good. I have read more books every year than the last and 2019 is my best year yet. I know I can hit my goals in 2020.

Watching The Crown on Netflix, Shameless on Showtime, Watchmen on HBO, and re-watching all the Star Wars films on Disney+ in preparation for seeing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker next month. Beyond that, and the news playing in the background most of the time, I’m trying to limit my time in front ot the television. I lose far too much time and sleep to the comfort of the couch and mindlessly binging episode after episode of shows that aren’t all that entertaining or exciting when I really think about it.

Learning about Modern & Contemporary American Poetry and International Women’s Health and Human Rights, still. To be honest, I made not a bit of progress throughout all of November. I’ve not had the time or the energy to finish any courses this month and I’m not sure I’ll be able to pick them up again until after the new year. I enjoy learning in such a structured way and I miss the feeling of accomplishment I got week after week but finding time for writing is my top priority now and that is hard enough without adding expection and excuses to procrastinate.

Anticipating a very busy December! This month we have “Friendsgiving”, a production of Shakespear’s Twelfth Night, a new Star Wars film, Christmas shopping, Christmas Day, a possible trip, and New Year Eve celebrations with friends. It’s a lot but I’m looking forward to it all. I had purposely left November’s calendar blank thinking I would relish the down time before the holiday season. In reality, I felt quite the opposite. I felt restless, bored, cooped up, and lonely. I hate venturing out into the world when the weather turns frigid but I am learning that that isn’t very good for my mental health. I’m trying, instead, to keep busy, to get outside, to see people, and enjoy the winter rather than feeling trapped by it.

Reflecting on all that I am thankful for and how I can better show gratitude. November is the month of giving thanks and no matter my feelings surrounding the origin story of Thanksgiving, I do think a holiday meant simply for being with the people you love and expressing gratitude before the end of the year is essential. I’ve made vast improvement over the years in my ability to take stock of all the good in my life not just once a year but nearly daily. Where I need to do the work now is in learning to express that gratitude to the people I love, an act that for some reason surfaces deep feelings of embarrassment and inadequacy. I’m exploring and working to overcome the reasons why I feel that way when all I want to say is, “thank you”.

Feeling tired. My health has not been good lately. Since the start of autumn I have had an upper respiratory infection, an ear infection, a bout with a stomach virus, and now the worst of my ulcerative colitis symptoms have returned. I’m stressed, disappointed, worried, and, above all, exhausted. I had hoped to end the year with a reduction in both the number of medications I was taking and the dosage of the ones I was to stay on but now I may be back at square one, taking steroids and looking to start yet another medication. I am getting ahead of myself though. My latest round of lab results are not back and the doctor has not decided the next course of action but even the waiting wears me out.

Fearing a possible upcoming promotion at work. I’m excited to take on a new role and to have more time to do the things I feel passionate about there, but I am afraid of not getting it and worse I’m afraid of not getting it due to my own lack of preparation. I’m afraid of failing, so I am avoiding working on my resume, gathering letters of recommendation, or practicing my interview answers, and that, in turn, is making me even more afraid to fail, which is only making me more avoidant. I know how to stop the cycle, but the fear of responsibility and of the unknown is overwhelming. I need help.

Hating holiday expectations. I’ve never been big on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I enjoy the food, and the time with friends and family, but the cloud of consumerism and the expectations we place on each other and ourselves to show our love through things disgusts me. I am disgusted with who I become this time of year. I’m disgusted by all the wanting and the disappointment I feel from not receiving what I desire. I am disgusted by the anger I feel when I have to force myself not to buy things for myself and I disgusted by my envy of what others and buy and have. The season brings out just as much bad in us as it does good.

Loving coffee! A cup of coffee is such and ordinary and everyday thing but I’m practicing not just finding joy in the ordinary but in injecting passion into the ordinary. I figure the best place to start is the most consistent part of my day, my cup of coffee. During the summer months I cannot bring myself to drink hot coffee and instead brew endless pitchers of strong cold brew to get me through the heat of the day but now that winter has come I have been able to make coffee with varying degrees of strength and taste through the Moka pot and my French press. I miss my espresso machine and doubt I will get to replace it this year but I’m considering buying an ibrik soon to practice making Turkish coffee.

Needing more time for me, always, always, always more time for me. The time exists but I feel guilty for claiming it. When I spend my hours on myself all I can see are hours I am taking from others. I am not contributing. I am not giving. I am being selfish, not selfless. I am being introverted, not extroverted. I am not being productive. I am wasting my time. So, I guess what I need isn’t the time but the strength, and the perspective, and the support needed to take time for myself and the things that are important or fulfilling to me no matter how little they contribute to or produce for anyone else.

Hoping that somewhere between here and 2020 something good happens for me, for the people I love, for every human all over the world. God knows we all need it. THis past year has been a hard one for everyone. Humans, humanity, we all need a win, a boost to our self-esteem and our desperate need to believe in the good of the universe and the good in each other. We need something to go well, to go right, to go the way we hoped. We need a little peace, love and understanding. We need the kind of holiday spirit we talk about but rarely see anymore. I hope we all can find it if even just a little bit. I know it would make all the difference.

So, yeah, all in all, November was a good month. I enjoyed my holiday, and all the time I took to rest and to wait, and though we saw a couple of significant snow storms for the most part even the weather cooperated. I’m looking forward to December and to the end of another year. I’m grateful I get to have it and all the good and bad it will bring too.

But what about you? Did you have a good Thanksgiving? Did you find much to be thankful for? Have you fallen very deeply into seasonal depression yet? Are you ready for a new year? How will you spend the last of this one?

Let me know in the comments.

“There is October in every November and there is November in every December! All seasons melted in each other’s life!”

— Mehmet Murat ildan

The inspiration for these posts comes from Andrea at Create.Share.Love

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

The Week’s End // A Thought-Provoking Round-Up

Happy Saturday everyone! If you’re looking for some interesting things to read or watch while you kick back and relax, look no further, here are my favorite things from around the web this week:

1. “I’m just a guy who’s had 21 years worth of anxiety fixes tried on him by doctors and cognitive behavioral therapists. I’d like to share with you which ones have worked for me over the next 30 days.” — 30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety (Intro) // CJ Chilvers

2. “Our energies are overwhelmingly directed toward material, scientific, and technical subjects and away from psychological and emotional ones. Much anxiety surrounds the question of how good the next generation will be at math; very little around their abilities at marriage or kindness. We devote inordinate hours to learning about tectonic plates and cloud formations, and relatively few fathoming shame and rage.” — Alain de Botton on Existential Maturity and What Emotional Intelligence Really Means // Brain Pickings

3. “Neurosymphony explores three distinct perspectives on the brain, using videos of the scans made freely available by the NICC. The video pairs the imagery with an excerpt from the album Chapel by the US electronic musician and music-cognition researcher Grace Leslie, in which she converts her brainwaves into music.” — Neurosymphony // Aeon

4. “Training is based on deep-dive EI activities, such as mindfulness and meditation, as well as empathy and compassion exercises to strengthen their relationship with guests. Employees are entrusted to make on-the-spot decisions to improve a client’s experience.” — New research suggests this is the best way to teach emotional intelligence // Fast Company

5. “There is an overflowing pipeline of “feel-good” stories traveling from local to national news, showcasing inspirational tales about adversity and how community members support each other in times of need. However, these pieces, seemingly easy to report out because of their surface-level levity, often eclipse overarching, unexplored narratives about labor, health care, education, and more, indicated by the lack of public or private support detailed in these stories themselves.” — Beware of the feel-good news story // Vox

6. In absolutely sickening news: “A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to ‘reimplant an ectopic pregnancy’ into a woman’s uterus–a procedure that does not exist in medical science–or face charges of ‘abortion murder’.” — The Guardian

7. “A general view shows a statue among abandoned items and debris in an entry area for the canteen inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University on November 20, 2019.” — Photos of the Week // The Atlantic

8. “Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss.” — What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say // The Atlantic

Bonus: More notes on stuttering // Austin Kleon

9. “You might think that in everyday life, the things you see and hear influence what you feel, but it’s mostly the other way around: What you feel alters your sight and hearing.” — The Wisdom Your Body Knows // The New York Times

10. A re-aired episode of The Ezra Klein Show I missed from last year with Lilliana Mason. From the synopsis “…Mason offers one of the best primers I’ve read on how little it takes to activate a sense of group identity in human beings, and how far-reaching the cognitive and social implications are once that group identity takes hold.”

Bonus: Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity by Lilliana Mason

Have you read, watched, written, or posted an interesting or inspiring thing this week? Has something on the internet made you feel strongly, think deeply, or see the world in a new light? If so, drop a link in the comments, we’d love to check it out!

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

I’m resting today, again. The holiday and the shopping were too much and not only am I dealing with the usual ulcerative colitis pain and exhaustion but my legs are also sore from all the walking too. I’m preparing myself physically and emotionally for a family brunch tomorrow, a busy work week after, and a bland diet for the foreseeable future.

I’m hanging out in the “creativity room” at least and doing my best to get a few blog post up. It feels good to have the space and the time to put on a couple of podcasts and to try again and again to WORK DON’T THINK RELAX as Ray Bradbury says. I’m not good at it but that’s ok. All I ask from myself right now is to practice.

Happy Black Friday! We’re braving the madness this year to get a jump on holiday shopping this year but opted to go out later to avoid the crowds. The stores are still packed though and the deals hardly seem worth it. I almost wish we had stayed home but the promise of peace of mind, of knowing that there is less I will have to buy later is keeping me going.

We figured the best use of our time was to start at the mall. There are more stores and options per square foot and less need to be in traffic or hunting for parking spaces. The stores are packed of course and though there is still plenty left to buy the lines are too long in many places to warrant the purchase. We left many stores empty handed because we didn’t want to wait. There will be more sales, and more days to shop in the weeks to come. It doesn’t all have to get done today.

I’m still in pain and still feeling miserable but my wife treated me to a fancy lunch at a new fancy place which made all the difference and gave me a few more hours of high spirits and optimism but It’s getting dark now and we’re still out shopping but even her energy is waning. It’s time to head home, heat up those leftovers, and make a few drinks. We did good. I’m proud of us.

Happy Thanksgiving! We’re up early making breakfast and mimosas together and listening to the parade in the background. I’m still not feeling well but my excitement dims my pain and exhaustion. We have so much good food and plenty of delicious drinks to last us all day and a whole lot more. We opted to have lamb for dinner instead of turkey. I wanted duck but the store was all out.

I’m still sad that I’m not with my family this year but it feels good not to have to go anywhere or deal with a huge mess or any flaring tempers too. I’m even entertaining the idea of spending Christmas—maybe every holiday!—this way too. No, that would get old, and my wife and I would probably start to feel too disconnected, too lonely to sustain that. We need more than just each other in the long run and the holidays are for expressing all kinds of love and gratitude after all.

Besides eating and drinking copious amounts of food and alcohol I have blog post drafts to work on and the last of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx to get through. We also have six more Star Wars movies to rewatch in preparation for The Rise of Skywalker mid-December. So much for less T.V. time right?

But what else can I do while I’m feeling so sickly and pushing myself to worse with overeating such delicious and hard to digest food? I imagine after this week is all said and done my gut will need a nice long rest consisting of bone broth, Jell-O, and Gatorade morning, noon, and night until I heal up again.

It’s the first day of Thanksgiving break but I’m already dreading the end. I was supposed to go into work this morning but I’m in too tired and in too much pain for the money to be worth the rest and peace of mind. I didn’t really have to be in anyway and with the snow still piled up everywhere and the roads still slick I’m sure that hardly anyone else made it in either.

So, I’m spending the day on my own while my wife visits her mother. I’m planning our Thanksgiving dinner and hoping that by the time she gets home and we go back out to shop for ingredients that that there will be enough left on shelves to make a good holiday out of. I wish we had big plans with family. I wish all of my siblings were here again like they were for my wedding but flights are so expensive and there has been no time to plan.

Still, I have so much to be grateful for and so much to celebrate. I can’t lose sight of that this week.