Tag: 2019

I noticed the leaves changing today. Well, I noticed first yesterday but it was so little I imagined I imagined it. Today, I’m seeing it all over. Not on every tree but enough to indicate clearly that the beginning of the end has begun. I’m desperatly hanging on the thr hope that though the days are growing shorter and cooler it will be a long while more before I feel trapped and hopeless in winter again.

Two of my sisters, born years apart, one to a different mother and the other from a different father, celebrate their birthdays today. I called them both, one too tired to talk much and the other, well, in that case I was the one too tired to talk much. I haven’t been myself today. Either the fatigue is back or I am coming down with something. Everyone at work is sick and so are many of the kids. I hear it’s strep which I have always been susceptible too.

A larger part of me is convinced it’s all in my head.

The morning started out well but I’m feeling rather unnerved and I can’t figure out why. Everything is good. I’m on time. I’m relaxed. I’m getting shit done. I guess the reasons I should be feeling good are exactly the reasons I’m so worried. I’m not used to this feeling.

After the doctors visit yesterday I picked up a bottle of magnesium gel caps with the hope of not only improving my ulcerative colitis symptoms but of aiding in my quest for a good night’s sleep too. I took just one with dinner and—I know it’s probably all in my head but—I really feel like I slept better last night and got up right on time to go for a short jog this morning with no issue.

Last night I wasn’t able to get my body weight routine in, but, oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow evening. I may go out running again to make up some of the time and distance lost on my morning run to sidewalk closures this evening, but if I don’t, it’s fine too. I deserve the rest anyway.

I somehow have my shit together today and it’s kind of freaking me out. I arrived at work early, didn’t forget anything, had very little anxiety, and have managed to carve out a couple of hours of free time for myself. Later this afternoon I have a doctor’s appointment and consequently the afternoon off from work. I’m looking forward to both without stress or guilt. Who am I today?

Update: The doctor’s visit went really well. Starting tomorrow I will start tapering off of one of my medications entirely and in the next few months I will get to drop to a lower dose of the other. I can stop taking the iron supplements, but I have to keep taking the calcium and vitamin D and I have to add magnesium. More blood was drawn and soon I will need bone density and skin checks but it’s all just precaution.

My lab results are good. I feel good, and I have the best doctor and support system anyone could have asked for.

Every day I get closer to the old me.

There were good things today.

I cleaned. I wrote a little. I didn’t get to that cut out poem, but I spent some time on taking care of me. There was a delicious dinner and a bottle of good red wine. I got new head phones and they are exactly what I need to help get through the long days at work.

And now the weekend is over and I am trying not to be too down about it. I’m proud of myself for doing better today than I did yesterday but I’m still carrying so much guilt. I can’t do that anymore. I can’t let myself get sucked into mindless TV and social media timelines that way again. Not all day.

But today was better, and that has to be enough. I have to let it go and start new tomorrow.

I love Friday the 13ths. Everyone thinks they are such spooky and unlucky days but I feel the opposite. I was born on a 13th you know and so too me they are worth celebrating. I wish this one were my birthday it being a Friday and a full moon, a rare occurrence indeed I hear. A quick search tells me the next time this will occur in April will be in the year 2063. I will be 78 years old then.

No matter the date any Friday is a good day because it means the weekend and fun and rest. This week has been both long and short and as such I am both relieved and sad to see it end. I have no big plans this weekend and only the possibility of a Sunday morning hike to look forward to. I contemplated asking friends to come out for a “margarita Friday” but we’ve all spent too much money and time seeing each other lately. I thought about asking my family to get together but with so many of their birthdays coming up I thought it best to wait.

Oh well, maybe a quiet weekend spent doing quiet things is worth looking forward to too.

Suddenly the week is passing quickly again. Perhaps stress and anxiety not only color the present and the future, but maybe the past too? Maybe it all got drawn out because I was too busy holding back, holding on, and avoiding moving forward all together and now that I am free from this small (in hindsight) fear I can move through time again—and time can move through me too—normally.

Of course all this also means there aren’t enough hours in the day again.

I’m avoiding things again. Hard things are rearing their ugly heads and I am making excuses to turn toward lighter, happier, sunnier things, but I know it has to stop, and I know I will feel far better too when it does.

So, the to-do list is growing and I’ve added dates and times to the calender. These are things that I must be brave for and must, if need be, mindlessly rush toward before my feelings and fears can catch up.

I’m an over thinker, but I am learning to turn off that inner skeptical, pessimistic, and degrading voice and simply do. We can’t always be people of forethought and wisdom. Sometimes we have to be people of action if we ever want to get anything done.

Today was made of many small fortunes. The route I rode this morning was a long overdue reminder that this job can be both fun and rewarding if you put forth the effort to make it so. Of course, I knew that, but it’s been a long time since I felt it.

There was plenty of work to do around the office when I got back but none of it was hard and all of it made me feel proud and useful. There was time to read afterward and despite my fatigue I was still able to be cherry and social with my coworkers.

I took advantage of the rare opportunity to go home early today and promptly wasted it on an accidental nap. Oh well, it’s not like I’d have had the time on a normal day anyway and it’s not like I did nothing at all. Small chores and catching up on reading count for something, don’t they?

The evening is less easy but there is still good here too. I’m going off to bed only wishing we were further along in the workweek. As for the rest, I am content.

The fatigue has returned. The day was easy on me and the people around me were understanding and undemanding and still I struggled to keep up. I crave sleep and where I couldn’t get it I at least craved solitude and silence. I got neither but thank God for headphones. At least I could tune out the undesirable and listen to music to music to match my mood.

I spent a lot of time reading in the afternoon. I made the mistake of trying to read four different books at once in a desperate attempt to make up as much lost ground in my reading goals as I can, but I am beginning to doubt the strategy. Not because I don’t like the books, or because I feel overwhelmed, but because now all I want to spend my time doing is reading those books. I suppose there are worse ways to waste time.

The evening is better. My wife and I cooked dinner together, something new, savory, satisfying. Tonight feels like another Sunday, not rushed, not stressful, and tomorrow the week will be a day closer to done.