Tag Archives: gratitude

Challenge, Letting Go

Letting Go Challenge: Week Ten

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One of the best questions I’ve ever been asked is, “Where are your hands and feet?”

It sounds silly, really, but it’s one of the most profound things I’ve ever been asked.

I say I want to do this and that, meet this person and that. Accomplish this and that.

But when I ask myself where my hands and feet are, sometimes they’re not actually doing what I want to do or moving toward where I want to be.

So I can correct. No need for punishment or judgment, just a simple correction: put my hands and feet to work doing what I want to do.

But sometimes I am doing what I want to, as evidenced by my hands and feet. Here it is, ten weeks, and I’m still getting rid of junk.

Some of the things I’ve accomplished in the process:

  1. I have a gap on my bookshelf.  Considering I didn’t want to even think about my books ten weeks ago, I’m a bit impressed with myself.
Not a thigh gap--far more exciting
Not a thigh gap–far more exciting.

2. My closet is way, way more organized (not quite finished, but I still have many things to get rid of.)

3. I’ve started an organized medical file for taxes.

4. I’ve gotten rid of pizza coupons that have been on my fridge since April of 2014. Really. 

Some things that have started happening (perhaps side-effects, but then again, I don’t like assigning causality):

  1. I pick things up more often.  I have a tendency to leave coffee cups wherever I had coffee last. I can say with confidence (and yes, a little bit of joy) that the only coffee cup currently on my table–or scattered about the house–is the one I’m drinking from right now.

2.   I’ve discovered I really like giving things away.  While organizing a drawer, I came across several pairs of gloves–things I’ve never bought myself and yet somehow came to own. That very day at work someone was complaining about being very cold, so I found an opportunity to give them to someone I knew could use them.  It’s not altruism so much as it is laziness–I still have this ingrained thing in me that I really don’t want to throw things away unless I have to, and yet I still really, really don’t want to give it to Goodwill.  So I give away what I can to people I know, and by taking it, they’re doing me a favor. I only have 1/4 a box of stuff to go to Goodwill. Some of the stuff I could probably sell–movies and stuff, things in good condition.  I could use the money, but that’s not how I want to make money.  That idea of not being “how” I make money isn’t something I really can  explain. It just feels wrong.

3. I’m reading more. I’m in a race to read all the books I have (and want to read) before buying any more.  Oh, I’m also reading fewer books at a time, which does in fact streamline the process. I’m currently reading Eric Butterworth’s Spiritual Economics for 10 minutes in the morning, and currently, Bernie Sanders’s Outsider in the White House in the evening.

4. I’m adding another challenge–a gratitude challenge. Find one (different) thing every day that I’m grateful for, for a total of 7 a week.  It’s as much about establishing a practice as it is to grow.

So anyway, the stuff:

  • 1. Post-it pad
  • 2. Water balloons
  • 3. Angel candle holder
  • 4. Love and Peace lunchbox
  • 5. Small black bag
  • 6. Red shirt
  • 7. Orange shirt
  • 8. Camera box
  • 9. 2014 calendar
  • 10. Broken dust pan
  • 11. Movie: Mr. and Mrs. Smith
  • 12. Movie: Journey to the Center of the Earth
  • 13. Movie: Hannibal Lector Two Pack
  • 14. Movie: An Officer and a Gentleman
  • 15. Make Up bag
  • 16.  and 17. Nail Polishes
  • 18. Mascara
  • 19. Clearasil
  • 20. Lipstick
  • 21. Eye pencil

The make up stuff might very well be from when I  was i my early 20’s. Some of it looks decidedly goth-y.

I actually filed/shredded 75 things this week, far above my requisite 21. Considering I had 15 separate things (and counting)  on Enbrel, I’m not sure it’s much of an accomplishment.

But it’s something.

Fabulous Friday, life getting better

Fabulous Friday: Loving What Is

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I’ll admit I stole the title from Byron Katie’s book of the same name, but I’m sure it has something to do with flattery.

Or something.

It’s been a bit of a rough week. I’m on my (I hope! I hope!) final leg of my prednisone journey, and on Sunday I started a 5mg dose, down from 10 mg. So much for that “uphill battle” thing: the trip down is far rougher than the trip up. Including the ‘roid rage and my flipping out over the bullshit mockumentary of the horrors of Planned Parenthood, which ended with my yelling at someone I really respect, realizing I was yelling at someone I really respect, and hiding away for the rest of the day.

Not my finest moment.

But going down is worse.

Because I had calmed down (way, way down), I had missed how much I had been “propped up” (almost quite literally) by the prednisone.  A couple of weeks ago, I went from 15 mg to 10 mg, and I could feel a difference energy-wise, but it wasn’t a huge deal. I  wasn’t flaring up every other day, so I knew the Enbrel is working.  Going down another notch on the steroids, however,  has pretty left me dragging myself around, kinda-sorta moving from task to task.   A bit of swelling started on Wednesday in my hands, and I’m hurting.

Not all days are good ones; not all weeks are good ones.  And yet, here I stand, A little over 9 months since my first flare-up, and I’m in better shape than I ever would have imagined at that point.

When I’m asked how I’m doing, I answer, quite honestly, “I’ve had much worse days.”

Because I have. Much, much, worse days.  I have constant nausea; in fact, I’m recommending to all my friends that they buy stock in Coca-Cola because I’m pretty much living off of Sprite and plain saltine crackers.

And yet, here I stand.

I am grateful that I have such a great boss. I’m grateful for my coworkers who, despite the sheer chaos of their days at times, still check on me.

And I’m very, very grateful for my friends.  I’m grateful when I see “long-lost” ones and play board games with them, and I’m grateful when I lose by negative 78 points because I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’m very, very grateful for like-minded people and the ability we share to lose ourselves in laughter.

I had committed to NaNoWriMo this month, and my goal is to lay down another 50k words and just trudge through the rough draft. I want it finished. Considering I barely broke 30K all year, though,it’s a long shot.

But I seem to excel at longshots. I’ve only written about 3k so far, but it’s more than I had written in all of October. So it’s something.

And it’s pretty fabulous from where I’m standing.

blogging

April so Far …

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…Isn’t that different from March, only there is a very observable lack of ice cream.

I’m not exactly sure where I got the idea that life would be smooth sailing once I made a commitment to something. It’s been anything but.

I have (read: had) a short story due at 6 this morning. Not done. Lots of stuff: Not done. There are four-ish weeks of school left and there is so very, very much: Not done.

On the other hand, I’ve managed to see this guy (It was in March, but it was so cool that it carried over):

Phil Jones’ didgeridoo workshop. I think if I go to one every year, in about 10 years, I’ll have figured out how to play.

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gratitude

Double Dose (Gratitude Thursday, a Day Late)

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I’m back. Oh, boy, am I back.

I don’t know if I’m back to blogging as often as I had been, but I’m back, back, back.

This morning, as I was walking (and feeling incredibly ungrateful that I’ve managed to misplace my MP3 player), I realized that I hadn’t actually posted a gratitude for Thursday.

At the moment I was thinking about it, I was feeling so very good in my body as it was moving, I was feeling swept along, legs stretching, feet up and down and up and down and arms pumping. And I was feeling so grateful for movement. And the product of movement. The joy of moving is joy enough, but when I can feel with my hands my muscles coming together, strengthening, lengthening, moving.

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literature

Passion and Gratitude

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So I was talking to a recently acquired friend about my love affair with Chekhov. God help us all when I get to talking about Chekhov.

I don’t even know a whole lot about Anton Chekhov. I only know “Lady with the Pet Dog.”

Actually we were talking about what I would consider “good literature,” but even that was after the point of origin. We were talking about passion. Yes, that was it, indeed.

We were talking about passion, about living a passionate life, about what made one passionate.

So I started discussing literature, which, is as far as I’m concerned, started for me with Anton Checkhov’s “Lady with the Pet Dog.”

Anton Checkhov’s story is all about passion, or rather, it culminates in what I consider to be the perfect example of passion. It’s a rather unoriginal story when reduced to its plot: man meets girl, man gets girl, man loses girl, man summons courage to get her back, and the end is left open, while optimistic (at least in the mind of the lovers) it is open ended and ambiguous.

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gratitude

Gratitude Thursday

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I’m trying really, really hard to find something to be grateful for today, but no luck so far.

Thankfully, there are still 14 hours left in the day.

Things had been so good since January, magnificently so, that it took my by surprise when I hit Spring Break.   It seems like I got things all figured out, and then they all fell apart.

And fell apart and fell apart and fell apart.

I’d say that I’m grateful that there are 14 hours left in the day, but I’d be lying.

But I am trying.

Journey

Independence Day

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“I’m dying!” I yelled at Sherry in a moment of utter thoughtless withdrawal a few weeks ago.

“No you’re not,” she shot right back.

Actually, I was. Just not in the way to which I was alluding. That night, 23 days ago, I smoked my last cigarettes back-to-back.

Nancy the smoker died on January 9, 2008. Nancy the non-smoker was reborn the next morning, full of phlegm and an insanely sore throat. I know that there’s a high relapse rate. I also know that I can never, ever have a single cigarette or a single puff of one or I will relapse. Because that’s the way I’m wired, for better or worse. The only way I’ll start smoking again is if I indulge in a behavior that I don’t want to do in the first place.

And despite the passing twinges, that’s exactly how it should be.

It took me over a year of really, really trying to quit to get to this point.

In about three months, I will be 34 years and one week old as I walk across the stage to get my pseudo-bachelor’s degree. I was thinking about that today and realized that I was close to hating myself for LITERALLY half my life for something that wasn’t even my fault.

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