Tag: Journal

I’m feeling pretty cruddy this morning. I think stress—and other bad feelings—are catching up to me. All week I had done so well getting up on time, going out to jog, getting to work on time, and keeping my spirits high, but today I can’t do any of that. Today I just need to feel.

Things improved.

Tonight we are going to my mother’s to celebrate two of my siblings birthdays. My wife and I came bearing gifts, good good, wine, and cake. I felt good to see them all and to make them feel special. I have a place and a purpose and life is not bad in every moment. There can bee good even while the the grip of the real world squeezes.

It started out as just a “challenging day”. From the moment I woke up I felt bad vibes in the cold air streaming from the open window above my bed. I got to work and all my well laid plans went out the door within minutes. I hate crisis. I hate reacting. I hate not knowing where I am going or what I am to do.

Very quickly it became a “hard day”. Work piled up and bad news came in through the phone. There are few ways out of the predicament and all solutions are bad ones. I’m not alone but we are alone. We know we must endure together but trying not to be at each others throats is exhausting.

By evening I was sure that what I was actually having was a “very bad day”. I’m falling apart and today I cannot hide it. I’m hurt, and scared, and angry, and it all comes from a place of love. I wish I was more for everyone but I am only me and that is why things go to shit so much. We are all only who we are though. It’s not a bad thing but that is no comfort either.

The bright side is I made it through. I’m trying to be grateful and to be optimistic but the best I can muster is the hope that whatever long term harm comes won’t last as long as my fears imagine.

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.