Lisa Marie Blair

Tag: September 2019

  • 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.

  • Goals // Week 38

    Goals // Week 38

     Write one new thing outside of my journal. I don’t have to post it this week, but I do have to write something, anything. I have a schedule and I have to stick to it. That means no social media, no “research”, no work duties and no minor chores. Just keep it simple. Write it, even if it’s bad, even if you don’t even know what it is, just write it.

    Update: Yeah, no, I didn’t get this one done. I was just too distracted. I was too full of energy and longed too much to be outside and moving.

     Read 200 pages of anything. I have 3 books going right now and I have made very little progress on any of the three. I think it would be best if I narrowed the options to two—one physical book and one to read from my phone. Progress will feel more substantial and fewer choices make it easier to decide when and what to read.

    Update: I’m not sure how many pages I read but I’m guessing off the top of my head around 100. It’s better than nothing at all but I had hoped for better. Once again, it was an issue of focus, not time.Update:

     Finish week five of MODPO. It’s been months since I’ve done a lesson and all I have to do is watch the videos. It’s hard because I have to devote my full attention to the lesson but it’ll be good practice as I move away from multi-tasking anyway.

    Update: This I completed and made quite a lot of progress toward finishing week 6 too. I could have gotten that done too, but I picked up where I’d left off on International Women’s Health and Human Rights too.

    Wake up early to go for a run three mornings this week and choose three other evenings to do a simple body weight work out instead. On Sunday go for hiking and a do a simple yoga routine. The goal is not to push myself but just to start. Any activity at all will be better than what I have been doing.

    Update: I did the running but was too busy and too tired in the evening for the bodyweight routine. On Sunday I was nursing a sore knee and decided it was best to stay in.

    Go to bed on time. I haven’t been sleeping well, and it’s starting to affect my mood and my motivation. I want to get back to getting ready for bed 30 minutes beforehand and if I get done early, reading a physical book until I feel drowsy.

    Update: I sort of did this. I wasn’t always on time but I wasn’t late either so I’ll call it a win. Where I failed was, I didn’t read before bed and so by the time I had torn myself from my phone screen I wasn’t in the right headspace to rest. I’ve reset the “head to bed” alarm on my phone and with the cooler evening on the way a hot cup of Sleepytime tea will be further incentive.

    Breakfast for the week is overnight oats. It’s cheaper than buying instant oats and probably healthier too but I have to remember to make them, every night! While I’m choosing the healthier option I should also refrain from buying snacks or dipping into the candy bowls at work. I never feel good after indulging.

    Update: I did really well making the oats every night and doing so has saved me so much time in the mornings that there’s no way that I can go back to making breakfast in the morning again.

    Catch up on the work thing I’ve been avoiding for the last few weeks now. I’m just feeling insecure but the truth is I am doing a good job and even if I do end up making a mistake or messing it up entirely, no one will be mad and I’ll learn and do better going forward.

    Update: This is my biggest failure of the week. My excuse is the lack of hours but the reality is I’m still just overthinking it.

    I know the list is long but if I stay positive and focused; I know I can do it. There are enough hours in the day, and on the days that there aren’t, I’ll choose just one thing to accomplish and rest assured that it is enough.

    Photo by Rémi Jacquaint on Unsplash

  • 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.

  • It’s been a lazy day spent binge-watching mindless shows, napping, drinking hard ciders, and eating junk. My body hurts and my mood is spoiled. Everything that would help sounds exhausting. There is no hope to recover the day, not that I want to anyway.

    I’ll try again 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.

  • Today was actually kind of a bad day, a rare occurrence for the weekend, but it was one of those bad days that while sad, and stressful, and hard, leaves you feeling grateful underneath it all too.

    It was a bad day, but it wasn’t just my bad day. It was a bad day, but I wasn’t alone. I was supported and loved and I gave support and love too. I know bad days are inevitable but I wish every bad day could feel like this. I wish everyone, if they had to have a bad day, at least got to have bad days like this sometimes too.

  • Today I attempted to plan a perfect day for someone else. I felt like my wife, who is always doing so much for others and planning everything, deserved a day doing things only she loves and a day in which she didn’t have to worry or think or decide what comes next.

    I planned a day for her and inadvertently experienced my own perfect day. Perhaps it’s only because we enjoy so many of the same things. Perhaps I failed in my endeavor and actually planned my own perfect day instead (this is very possible) or perhaps just seeing her happy and knowing that she knows how much I love her is what my perfect day really looks like.