Singing Bowl Sanity

So yesterday was a bad day, hence no post. We all have bad days, it is an essential part of life. Ironically is was not the first time I'd experienced this particular kind of bad day, but it was the first time that it didn't sink the entirety of my day.

I had sent a text to a friend that I was "coming to terms with certain realities." The response was that she had no idea what that means. So here goes:

There is a freedom in acceptance of circumstances, even disappointing ones. I've spent the last few years idling in fear. Fear of what? Loss of all different makes and models. Yesterday though, I addressed those fears, looked them in the eye and said, "Bring it."

I've worked unbelievably hard to get where I am today. There is a part of me that gets tearful at the thought that it could go away and I would have to completely restart my life at this point but another part of me that no longer has the will to allow that to hold me back. Looking at those insecurities and fears and literally saying to myself, "That actually wouldn't be the worst, because you can clearly handle anything," is the nicest thing I've done for myself in a very, very long time.

Yesterday I had a heartbreaking conversation with my longest and oldest friend who lives overseas. This is a person who has championed me no matter what, and has never told me what to do or how to live my life but rather just was there when I needed him. I told him I was having a bad day and I needed to talk. I asked if he could message me when he was free. He messaged me back immediately.

I word vomited my entire heart onto a screen and his reaction was beyond supportive, beyond encouraging, and exactly what I needed. I felt bad pouring all of that out and when I admitted even that, his response was "I'm impressed." He gave me instant validation that it took a lot to say or type or admit it all and that he was there for wherever things went. It was an internet hug of the best kind.

Ironically I had made plans with a good friend to go to a Singing Bowl Meditation class at a yoga center for last night. I had arranged a sitter and was completely open to whatever I got from the experience. The two people that knew the reality of my situation that I had told I was going to meditation and may just cry the entire class, said, "That may be the perfect thing for you today and it may be no mistake that is where you will end up this evening."

They were completely correct. Honestly, I fell deep in love with hippie culture at a very young age. I miss Oregon, but I just couldn't handle the cold, gray rain with what was happening in my life at the time. Everything else about Oregon I completely love, and all of the hippie, yoga, realign, live organically and purely stuff, I always embraced.

When my friend invited me she said "You're literally the only friend I can take." I laughed because I didn't know if that was a compliment? Turns out it was a big one. 

Don't get me wrong, the class itself is weird. The instructor is in a class all her own, but my brain was turned off by force of sound and it was amazing. There were moments where my mind would get frenzied and then some sound or chant or hum would shut it down. It was perfect.

I left feeling a new wave of "rested," went home, had some tea and got some much-needed rest. I'm being incredibly calm and patient with my body today and am feeling more aware. It's one of those things that I definitely wish I could attend regularly but generally just feel blessed for having the experience at all. 

There was absolutely no mistake in that being the end of my emotional day. There were moments were I felt proud of myself for not reacting as I had in the past to the events that led to my near-mental collapse, and it reaffirmed the work I have been doing. There were regretful moments of "how did I get here?" Regardless, the singing bowls seemingly saved my sanity for the day and that is quite a powerful accomplishment.

Being forced to be still and embrace the chakras and heart centers and light? It was necessary and healing for my trauma. Listening to the calming and unusual sounds and just releasing some tension? Beyond necessary. I felt all the stress and I felt it dissipate.

It was a great gift from a friend that I didn't even know how desperately I needed and I feel so lucky to have been invited. I woke up ready to just take things as they come and not just face, but embrace the new realities.

Right now my body is physically challenging me and I'm in the midst of an intensive diet and eating habit change. Mentally I'm having to regroup, rebuild and prepare for anything. Emotionally I'm taking literally one minute at a time. The daily goal is just to not cry.

This is what I know: I will not be saying yes to much through the end of the year in terms of extra plans. I am in self preservation mode and can't let obligatory things get in the way of my sanity. I will drown it out with singing bowls if needed. 

I may not be posting as much, but will definitely do what I can for the remainder of the year. I will continue though, because that is what we do. We continue. So away I go. 

Halloween-ing

I feel like I always have epic ideas for costumes that are edgy, funny or relevant and no one to humor me to dress up with. No one ever goes for my family themed ones that are over the top or needing lots of effort. As a mom, I now just take the kid to choose and buy the costume with no argument since she no longer lets me dress her.

Halloween was huge when I was little. We had epic trick or treating adventures in my town. My cousins would come over and we usually dressed together. Ghostbusters, Batman and Catwoman, and so on and so forth. We got to dress up at school too, which was a day with no uniform so that's always a big deal.

Halloween is still huge but now it's like a weird exit from fall, directly into the Christmas season. The new "toy book" from Target already came in the mail for Christmas shopping. Pretty sure my kid is already making a list. 

I have a mom friend that literally wins Halloween. She decorates more for Halloween than Christmas and has made costumes for my kid and her own and goes to great lengths to do so. I have some spider and skeleton lights my mom bought us, and some other random decorations but we are probably more of a Christmas kind of people. 

I love Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas, but Halloween somehow became the first of the end of year holidays and now is just a prequel to Christmas I think. Some stores already have Christmas decor out and for sale. It's so weird to me.

Thanksgiving has become just a Thursday we eat a lot and wait to go shopping for "deals" and is just a hop, skip and jump to Christmas. I don't want to be "that person" but I do not recall it being like this "back in my day," yes I said it.

Halloweening is now a serious thing. People go all out. Our town and our neighborhood both have epic Halloween festivities and my daughter is finally old enough to make her demands about attendance. 

I love seeing all the costumes and fun things people come up with. I admire the effort and time people put into their costumes. I love watching my kiddo enjoy the hunt for candy and get all excited. However, for me as a mom, that's about it. I don't often dress up and the most festive thing I have right now is candy corn leggings.

I don't dislike Halloween I just feel like it's no longer about me so, I put all my effort into making it fun for the little one. We also live in Florida so it's a little weird down here. It's usually hot, carved pumpkins don't last and you don't have to wear thick clothes under your costumes like I did, back in my day haha.

We are less than a week out for the big day and we have two events that are costume-wearing for the little person to attend this weekend. On the one hand, I might as well get my money's worth. On the other, she usually asks for extra things per wear be it make up or accessories. It's all part of the adventure though.

Some families are Halloween-ing like a boss. Hallow-winning if you will. For me, I just do what I can with the time and resources I have. Maybe as she gets older I will get more adventurous and creative. We'll see! For now, I will be anxiously awaiting her candy haul to sneak pieces at night!

Hurdles In Healing

I've spent how many blog posts waxing on about emotional, spiritual and mental healing? Okay maybe let's not count those. What about other healing though?

You scrape a knee, hangnail or stub a toe? Maybe you do some neosporin and a bandaid? Everyone is different. After my illness last week, boy do I have to heal. And here is where I am with it, which of course has me thinking in all terms of metaphors and other themes.

I'm totally not back to my full self yet. I'm careful with food, coffee, treats and so on because I'm super sensitive to everything with my body right now. I had a really rough workout this morning because I woke up with stomach cramps not knowing if I should go or not. I had to take it easy working out.

I'm not a "take it easy" kind of gal. I constantly push myself. I always want a good challenge so patience with healing is not me. This morning I realized that whatever my body is going through, everything is telling me to SLOW DOWN.

It's almost too funny, the irony of my body literally rejecting going back to life and getting sick the night we returned home. We pretend these things are inconvenient coincidences, but maybe they are legit signs to pay attention to. Did we have such a great vacation, one that ended weirdly with a little bit of a disagreement with my husband and an uneasy ride home that my body completely rebelled against coming back to routines?

You can speculate whatever you want but I'm more attune to the idea that emotionally, mentally and spiritually I have more power over my body than I think. What do personal trainers say? "Mind over matter?" There is truth in the cliches.

We go to therapy to heal mental wounds, but with physical ailments we take medicines and get shots and rarely let our bodies rest. I'll give it to my 6 year old but she was completely right, forcing myself to go back to work that following morning was not a good idea. I needed the rest.

So what are my hurdles in physical healing? They are ironically mostly mental. Now I second guess on what I may have overlooked within my body before my nasty illness overtook my day to day. I'm now wondering what every cramp and moment of discomfort is telling me. Is this a new "normal?' Will my body go back to pre-illness regularity?

We joke that getting older sucks and that what we got away with in our teen and twenties is long gone but it's completely true. I had a better metabolism and very lax caffeine effects compared to now. I can't have iced tea in the evening or it messes with my sleep. I can't drink too much alcohol, which means more than two glasses in one sitting with food, or it can ruin me an entire day. And now, I'm pretty careful about what I'm allowing my tummy to wrestle.

See if I Google it I probably have a tapeworm or something insane. So I sit here hypothesizing and worrying about never getting back to what I thought was normal. Then as I'm trying to figure out what to write about today, I realized I need to embrace whatever my body is telling me and that this may be my new version of normal.

Last night in the homework war, uncharacteristic to my normal self, I used the most calm tone ever talking about the tasks. I refocused her. I didn't yell if she had some crying jag outburst. I just said, okay, "If you need to feel your feelings that's fine, but if you can persist and get through what we need to do, you can spend your evening the way you asked me to earlier. Otherwise those privileges will be lost." It seemed to work much better.

Everything around me, is screaming "SLOW DOWN." Besides my body physically telling me, my anxiety, and things going on in my personal life, I'm just very much yielding to the probability that the new "shake up" in the routine, means taking things so much slower instead of some ridiculous race to get stuff done.

I'm learning to heal all over now. I'm completely in it. We are a couple months away from 2020. All of the motivational things and funny memes are coming out about it's entrance into our calendars. What am I feeling? I think 2019 has been incredible growth. Nothing is perfect and everything in my life is a current work in progress; completely in flux. But I'm not miserable, depressed or overly anxious. I'm making things work. I'm taking things as they come. And that is huge.

Healing may not be linear, which is fact, but I'm just continuing to heal, all over. It is completely encompassing me. There will be many hurdles in healing. There always are. But today, in the midst of the stomach cramps and gurgles, the morning out of routine and the workout that was super difficult on my body and lungs, I just realized "Okay, here I am, healing and working it out one step at a time." I can only do what I can with what I'm dealt. What a revelation! And so I soldier on!

Homework Wars And Worries

She's only in first grade... 

I had heard the homework cries of the mothers before me but she was still little. Only now do I fully understand. The fight about said homework is often worse than the homework itself.

She gets a weekly packet sent home and I'm already critical of the order of the packet and lack of complete communication on what exactly the lessons are. Let me just say that re-visiting all the things ingrmained in us from childhood with "newer" methods is really maddening and sometimes insulting.

My Achilles' heel is math. Always has been, always will be and some of the things they are teaching and how they teach it, I'm like "Wait, what?" It's like I know how to get the answer but not necessarily how to break down how I came to that conclusion. So then all of the issues of my childhood haunt me.

In a conference yesterday, it was explained to my husband that while my daughter is incredibly intelligent, she rushes through things and gets frustrated fast if she doesn't do them correctly the first time. This is a mixture of both sides. Other notes included that she aims to please. Duh! That's definitely a trait of mine. Oh and she has an excellent vocabulary. 

Last night my daughter and I got stuck on a math question and asked my mathematically inclined hubby to break it down. He did this whole charade and when my daughter hit a frustrated moment he told her to go to her room. I sat quietly at the table holding back tears of frustration. On the one hand, I've definitely parented that same way, on the other, I never want her feeling as though she is "dumb" or unable to feel everything that comes with learning and having a hard time doing so.

Full disclosure, have you ever heard someone explain something in detail and you just can't fully picture it? Maybe there is a way they are depicting it that you just can't break through to fully comprehending what they are talking about? You feel dumb if you say "nope" when they ask if "you get it?" So you just fake it until you make it right?

I've had this struggle the past few years at work where I feel like I'm explaining something plainly but when it comes out, a boss or superior is acting as though I'm insane, just making things up or speaking Latin. 

At some point I grew up a bit and realized, okay, slow down and explain it as though even a kid could understand what you're saying, walk the person through it and then you won't feel stressed about it. I use this regularly and now have to share the traits with my daughter. This is parenthood in full swing.

When she got upset, I felt it for her, I knew what it was. She didn't want to feel like "she couldn't." And guess what? No one does, especially us women. We do get the shit end of the stick being made to just feel inferior as soon as we are born. Not all men go out of their way to make us feel that, but there's a general fog of "boys do it better," that goes around regularly.

Getting her out of her anxious place and back to a learning place takes breaks and patience. Getting me away from my age old triggers and out of mama bear mode and into mama bestowing wisdom also takes breaks and patience. When my hubby ticked her off I wanted to yell at him for yelling at her. But I just took a breath, grasped my feelings and talked it out with her so we could finish the task at hand.

I don't know about anyone else, but especially moms, I just feel like we are ALWAYS rushing. We are always trying to do everything all the time and as quickly as possible. It's no wonder my kid rushes through tests and assignments.

We are a chore to rewards household. What this means is, that to get what you want (which is usually some form of technology) you have to do your homework and a chore first. Again, I'm not surprised she wants to "get it over with." How much of life as moms and employees and such do we want to "just get over with?" She is not coming up with these themes alone.

Last night I realized how many changes I would have to make, in order to be the best, most present mom I could, no matter how tired, no matter how "done" and no matter how overwhelmed, so that this kid could thrive. I like to joke that my dad raised three highly creative, highly intelligent, female under-achievers. I refuse to raise my kiddo like that. She will learn work ethic, to value education and to use it to the fullest to become WHATEVER she may want in life.

That starts in school. It's a frightening realization. We are cultivating tiny people to succeed in life. We get 18-ish years to mold them and guide them to be reasonable humans that do no harm and take no shit. This makes me worry.

We have these wars and arguments about reading and homework and how to do this, that and the next thing. And here I sit worried about how to make sure she gets the most out of it all and that I somehow parent her in the right way for her. My biggest fear, and I know I'm not alone but most people wouldn't really admit, is that she take on my anxieties and issues and carry them into her own world. We don't actually want our children to be exact miniature versions of ourselves. We wish we could just hand select our best qualities and then let them be their own level of awesome.

It's funny how one weird equation can add up. That was epic math pun usage by the way so, enjoy that! Parenthood keeps getting weirder. Here I am complaining about a school event this week, one that I truly don't enjoy but "must attend," and there are bigger things to deal with. 

I think my daughter will always need a little extra help. I know that I have needed extra help but am always afraid to ask. My goal is to make her unafraid to ask. This morning she was looking through the annual Target toy catalog and was eyeing an LOL scooter. She said to me "mom it only has the two wheels though so what if I fall? I'll fall." I said, "Baby, that's part of the fun. You fall you get back up and you keep going. You fall and go again and again and again." She rolled her eyes at me a bit but I want to get her past her mental hurdle that things are "too hard."

So much of life will seem "too hard" but that doesn't mean that we won't persist and that we can't succeed. Ushering in this mantra, this idea for her, this is my new project. I'm hoping that soccer and some team building stuff enforces a lot more confidence and strength too. For now, my wisdom is that I just have to get her out of her own way.

Ironically I still struggle with this. I am just now changing my internal dialogue of building up this whole exciting thing and then saying "nah, I could never do, be or have that," to, "If you want to do that, find a way to make it work for you." It's all about attitude.

No my daughter has the sass and attitude to lead a huge company or perhaps a prison gang depending on how things turn out. As her mom it's now my job to harness that for good, for her learning and growth, instead of watching her turn to negativity. Her and I will conquer this together and learn from each other, I can tell. She's already taught me way more than I ever learned in school, but for first grade purposes, I won't tell her that just yet!

The Couch Left Out On The Corner

You drive past it regularly. There's almost always one if not many on the way to anything. It's the couch left on the corner. 

Sometimes you glance and think "That's a nice couch," but then you realized it just rained a few days prior so it's probably trashed. Sometimes you are like "wow that is an ugly couch," or "that thing is gross!" Regardless, you drive on by.

Now that I'm not physically ill, mentally things start to move around more and yesterday on my way to work I saw the very infamous couch on the corner. On the road I take to work there is this random cul-de-sac with newer built homes and this couch was perfectly perched for disposal at the edge of this semi-circular neighborhood.

I started to think about all the couches that I have known in my just about 35 years on this earth and how many I have left on curbs. I recall about 5 left on curbs. My dad still has the loveseat couch from my childhood in his house now. It is ugly and not even comfy but if it ever comes my way it will be in my living room in a second.

My best friend has gone through a few couches and this summer it was what I noticed first in the living room when we stayed with her because at one time they had this huge sectional that curved around half the room that could fit all five of them and dogs. The new replacement was comfy though and still fit plenty.

On the one hand it's really weird that some couch on the corner drove me down memory lane of couch land. On the other, tis' the season for nostalgia. The holidays are upon us and I think I speak for everyone when I admit that the more holiday seasons we go through the more nostalgia we hold onto. 

So here I drive around, thinking of the couches. My first apartment I got a couch from a friend for free, the legs were knocked off and there were holes in the back where their ferrets would get in and climb and bite you. I bought my first couch cover and it worked. I kept that quite awhile. When I moved in with then boyfriend, now hubby, I had a loveseat from my mom's apartment she got at some thrift store with a very loud couch cover from Big Lots and half of the sectional from his place.

When me moved from Oregon to Florida, we had no couch, no loveseat, no living room furniture. I bought my new hubby his first recliner and we inherited a chair from my mom that was my grandma's. The first couch we got was...hmmm, possibly a pull out couch that my friend got at an auction which was in good condition but insanely heavy.

That one was left on the curb at our old place when we moved into our current home. It was replaced by a faux leather thing my husband insisted on from a neighbor which barely lasted and then we were graciously given the nicest couch and loveseat addition we have ever had in deep chocolate brown and I yell at my family regularly that we will never be so lucky as to get such nice stuff so, don't wreck it!

I never really thought about it until that particular commute but where do the couches go? Are there sanitation workers that take them home? Are they in a pile in a junk yard or trash heap? I could picture some award winning photo of a couch on top of a trash mountain just reminding us we are nasty slobs that sit on our waste in more ways than one. Wait, is this a perfect idea for some revealing expose on couches?

Do rained on moldy couches get broken down? Are they re-purposed? Do they end up in homeless shelters or lobbies of lesser establishments in this world? So many couch questions!

My daughter was recently given a hand me down doll house. My husband is extremely accurate in saying it is much more likely a doll mansion than doll house. Of course it came with many boxes of furniture. In some ways, you can't have a doll house without the furniture right? What's the fun in an empty house?  

The living room is the gathering place. The TV is the viewpoint from said couch, more often than not. And when those couches end up on the corner, it just made me wonder what happens in the grand scheme.

I wondered if the couch left out "to pasture" was replaced, downsized or just used to it's fullest. See, much like Phoebe on Friends, I love for all of our furniture to have stories:

I agree that otherwise everyone has the same stuff instead of things with history, so on my drive I was left to review the history of all of the couches of house Chriss. For some, this is a whole weird alliteration and wandering of my anxious mind. For me, it made sense after being taken down for a week in every way, that coming back I was thrown into a pensive place where a simple couch on a cul-de-sac could spark some nostalgic mental adventure that would warrant a blog post.

I would bet money you'll see a discarded couch on your way to or from home today. I would also bet that you've had this exact same reaction to the couch on the corner, at one time or another. Perhaps it's some greater metaphor or perhaps it's just "having a think" on a morning drive. Maybe I am onto some thing of a great couch story or maybe I'm just clearly getting back to all things Alison. Regardless, may your couch stay comfy and away from the corner, and may it be the thing that perfectly mirrors the placement of your TV, all while having history and nostalgia, all for the sake of friends. 

Vacation Bliss and Sick Daze: Whirlwind Unwound

Well, it's been awhile. I'm welcoming myself back into things as I type. Where have I been? Well, with the exception of a great trip, I have been nowhere awesome. In fact, I had been so ill last week I just couldn't pull it together to write, but I'm back and rebuilding in every which way to finish this year strong.

We had driven from left coast Florida to Hilton Head Island South Carolina for a Savannah, Georgia wedding and had a trip that caused my best friend to text me and tell me to do whatever it was we were doing more, so that the joy captured on my face was there way more often.

We had fun at the beach, we did some learning about the area, we went to a petting zoo, played a round of mini golf, we got treats galore! We were living our best lives as the cool kids say. We weren't breaking the bank, which was beyond amazing for us, too. That allowed for more relaxation in fact.

After a great family weekend with one minor speed bump, which now in retrospect is so telling it's almost creepy, I came home to one of the nastiest illnesses I have ever experienced.

Our last night we went to a restaurant my husband wanted to try. Full disclosure, I really don't enjoy going out to dinner. Breakfast out is a dream, lunches I can handle, but dinner with a 6 year old out, is like a race against time before she's done and you just want to relax and get your money's worth.

First I ordered a peach bellini, thinking it would be one way and it came out with more pulp than all of Florida's orange juice. I don't send things back. I also major in passive aggression. I will not complain and I don't want conflict. My husband is Mr. Restaurant Man and encouraged me to send it back, so I did. It was not an easy thing and actually caused a bit of a strain between us because I can get a little high strung in those situations and often over-stress it. 

When we ordered I tried to be adventurous and when I got my food it was lacking. After the humiliation and strain of the drink send back I didn't want to make another fuss and be "that customer" of the evening. The cole slaw on my tacos tasted weird, so I made the hubby try it. I said, is it like "bad" or a flavor that I'm not into? He said it was fine, I grinned and finished up, we headed to ice cream. For ice cream I ordered a blue cookie monster thing and then made everyone laugh at my blue tongue, blue lips and blue teeth to lighten the evening. We walked off the food and returned for the last night in the condo. I hit the hot tub for all of 10 minutes but then started to feel off.

I will admit that I'm that person who has physical trouble on her travels, meaning, my body gets off its normal schedule, if you get what I mean. In new places with unreliable bathroom use, my body gets tense and tends to stay that way until nature has it's way and wins. My husband made me a probiotic tea at the first mention of my tummy being off. It seemed to get some things feeling better. I slept. We got up early to see the sun rise before the long day in the car.

I was not even kind of hungry. I just wanted coffee. The coffee seemed to help the second act of whatever my tummy was going through. I didn't have solid food until 11AM and started with crackers. Then my husband and I shared some chicken salad. It wasn't until we were 2 hours from home I finally caved and got fast food. I got Taco Bell and at the time it was amazing and gave me the push through for the final stretch. However, as soon we were home and comfy I started to feel even more off. And so it began.

I will spare you the gory details, this is not that kind of blog, but let's just say my body was rebelling against either, dinner the night before, or the cheesy gordita crunch or all of the above. I had more tea and more calming food and still, things were leaving my body swiftly and I was having the most intense stomach cramps I have ever experienced. As the night went on it was coupled with fever and chills and long showers and midday naps weren't cutting it. I called into work Monday, with no choice but to rest. I got a weird second wind Monday and changed our sheets, convincing myself I would be fine the next day after all the extra sleep, and a bowl of pasta. 

Monday night was another sleepless night but I was going to work, come hell or high water. I hit the grocery store for reserves after rolling out of bed, taking a long shower, throwing on clothes, resting in bed another 10 minutes and then pulling it together enough to get myself to the store and the office. I got to the office 20 minutes early and napped in my car. I just had to make it to lunch I told myself.

I was on a steady diet of ginger ale, gatorade, water, and all I wanted was applesauce. I had cheese as the secondary option for protein. On my lunch I took a car nap then woke up violently needing to hit the bathroom. I started to have horrible cramping to the point where I felt faint, and then another ugly symptom came up and that's when I called in the hubby. He told me it was time to leave work, and go to urgent care, enough was enough.

My bosses were fine with me leaving early and I made it to urgent care in about 30 minutes. They warned me of a two hour wait. It only took me about 30 minutes before I got to a room, and my husband came to join me later. When the doctor came in, I had left out some important and gross symptoms my husband filled in for him, and apparently I warranted one injection and 2 prescriptions.

I was uncomfortable and in an haze. Ironically the shot was administered through none other than my butt and a very young, attractive woman who was a nurse practitioner had to see my old pale rear end to give me my injection to feel better. I will say my color came back quickly and I was released to go home and rest. The residual migraine stayed with me and off I went to get better. I had to take Wednesday off as well.

On Wednesday while the meds were working their magic I felt very spacey, almost high. I watched all the things on "the big TV," I normally wouldn't be allowed to if the kid were home. I tried to stay up all day so I could sleep well that night. I wasn't allowed to work out while I was on the meds and my husband check in on me that I was just resting and trying to get in some calories.

I had lost about 6 lbs in 2 days. Most women would jump for joy. I'm not even kind of "most women." This was killing me. I wanted my body back. I missed things like coffee, having any kind of appetite, wanting real food or meat and not having to go to the bathroom after every meal. I missed not feeling so thirsty and feeling like I actually knew my body. I felt like my body was just rebelling like "how could you!?" 

It wasn't until exactly a week later, last night, that I could eat at normal capacity. This morning was my first cup of coffee in over a week. After all of this, after everything, I realize how important it is to take care of myself in more ways than one. After I went to urgent care my daughter said "Mom, it was not a good idea for you to go to work this morning!" She wasn't wrong.

On the one hand, showing my make-up-less struggling, slightly smelly self was proof that I was actually not okay. On the other, it did me no favors. I was stupid grateful for my husband and daughter being supportive. I was also grateful the dog gave me endless healing cuddles. My bosses were amazing, with no guilt, and that helped me heal as well. 

This morning was my first workout back and I had to take it slow. I'm usually the last one to go after western medicine as the healing but I couldn't wait it out, and now I'm back to finish this year off and here is where I'm idling:

I can only do what I can with what is before me. This year has been one of healing and growth and we have made some serious moves in our family life and personal lives. It's been really hard. I've had to admit some stuff about my life, my family and myself that I don't want to. I've had to face some old traumas. I've had to grow UP.  Next year will be more of that.

I'm here and lucky to be here with the family that is mine and the good health I have. It is my job to make the most of the time I have on this planet. There will continue to be good days and bad days, vacation bliss and sick days and life's whirlwind may wind me up and keep me spinning but I just need to keep my focal point so as not to lose my balance.

I plan on finishing this year of blogging as intended and I'm not sure what 2020 will look like for writing. I appreciate all of you taking the time to read along and will be working on new topics this week and through the holidays. I'm back in action and hope to not be knocked down any time again soon!