hi

So.  It has been a month since I've posted anything in here.  I'm having a hard time articulating my feelings lately.  I've written plenty, posted and then removed the post many times.  That counts still, right?

Just wanted to say 'hi' to anyone checking in.  As soon as I figure out what I want to say, I will be back.

A Void

Why is it so hard to write sad feelings and post them?  No one has ever told me that it's only okay to ever feel and express happiness.  But, when people ask how I'm doing, I smile and say I'm fine just like everybody else does.  We all do that, don't we?  And, besides some of the stuff I'm gonna write about here today, I AM fine.  I have so much to be grateful for.  I have a husband who I love and like, awesome kids, my sis and dad and family and friends, a home, food in the refrigerator.  I can see and hear and I'm still breathing, and even if I've made mistakes in my life I still have the choice to do better ever day that I am alive.

With that being said, it's been awhile since I wrote anything in here.  I've been in a bit of a void.  I've been trying to figure out how to describe 'the void', so I googled some of the feelings swirling around in there, and google let me know I am depressed.  My body and mind feeling stuffed with concrete was also a good indication. 

Naw, google didn't have to cue me in; I knew what was going on.  It's that time of year again.  Autumn has always been a time for me when the happy goes away and the time drawing up a survival plan has arrived.  I've let go of some of the good habits that have helped me through the last couple of years.  I haven't ran in months, and that was the thing that helped the most.  I hadn't had a panic attack for a couple of years, and I attribute that to consistant running.  My self-esteem was bolstered. After all, it's hard to give too much weight to other people's opinions of you when you run five miles a day on your own will power.  I think I had started to take the benefits of running for granted.  Or, I'd forgotton the misery of social anxiety and depression, and how it diminishes any light that can come into my life.

It's hard to be a very good friend when I'm like this.  I feel so guilty about that.  It's hard to make and keep play dates.  It's hard to be that safe harbor for others during their storms, when I feel so unanchored myself.  I want to be a good friend.

I had a bad panic attack at meeting last Sunday.  Thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest, or I was going to pass out.  It started right after the meeting.  We were sitting in the front row.  I stood up, and started walking back towards the other people, planning on talking to someone, and that's when my heart started racing.  I went back to the bathroom and sat there for a bit, trying to calm myself down.  I didn't know what I was going to do, because Derrick was still out there and he had the car keys.  So, I just sat there until I could breathe a little easier.  I finally peeked out the door, and Derrick wasn't too far away.  I went over to him, and actually talked a bit to the group he was talking to, but he told me I was a  bit wild eyed.  We left right away.  I'd actually went out the the car early the previous Sunday too, because I'd started to feel really uncomfortable.  It's a bit frustrating, and definitely something I need to get under control again, because I don't want everyone there to think that I am avoiding them or have some bad feelings about anything.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I guess the feeling of wanting to jump out of my own skin is not a "good" feeling, but it is entirely about me and has nothing to do with my feelings about them.

We had our assembly day yesterday.  It was full of encouraging talks. It was good to see everyone, although I wish we would have had more time to visit!  I completely missed some friends, and just had quick drive-bys with others.  I stuck pretty close to my sister and Derrick- my safe people.
Gah.  October 19th is looming.  This time last year, we were at Mom's, embarking on the darkest month of our lives (so far).  It boggles my mind that it has been a year since that time.  One of the hardest things has been trying to figure out who I am again.  Before Mom had cancer, I was a stay at home momma of two little ones, and that is who I was.  Then Mom got cancer, and the next five years I was one of the many people trying anything to keep her in our lives.  Everything related to it.  Now that she is gone, I'm having a bit of an identity crisis. 

I fought so hard to have a positive attitude after we lost her.  I knew I needed to work hard to stay afloat.  Life keeps going on.  I knew eventually Spring and Summer would come along, and they did.   I knew eventually Fall and Winter would come back too, but I tried not to think too much about that.  I think I quit fighting to stay afloat prematurely.  Need to start fighting again.

Anyways... well, this is about as disjointed as I thought it might be.  My goal is to not delete it after posting:)

With all of the above written down, a new goal list may be in order.  I checked out what I wrote last year, and it seems a bit ambitious right now.  But it's a good starting point:
Spiritual
1. Improve my prayers.
2.Service twice a week- Wednesday and Saturday mornings. 16 hours a month... better recordings of return visits.
3. Meeting attendance... go whether I feel like being around people or not, no excuses unless I'm bleeding out of my ears.
4.Use Thursday after work as time to study better for that night's meeting. Help the kids prepare an answer for bible reading.
5. Really read my bible every day- even if it's just a couple of verses.
6.Invite friends from our congregation(and not just the family kind) over for dinner at LEAST twice a month... quit being a chicken about having company.
Physical
1. Continue running- get back to 3-4 times a week. Aim for m, t, f 4 miles each and 6 miles on either weekend day- 18 miles total.
2. Continue green drinks daily.
3. Buy more vitamins!!! Take daily!
Financial
1. Make an arrangement to completely pay off our credit cards. Financial freedom!!! Down with credit card slavery!!!
2. Continue to put money into savings every pay day. Then don't spend it.
3. Start a separate savings account just for travel. Start to save for the Europe dream trip that WILL happen someday.
Art & Photography & All Projects
1. Do one photography project a week and post some pics in here.
2. Strip my end tables and stain them black so they FINALLY match my coffee table! Buy the glass for the top of the coffee table.
3. Paint my bathroom.
Relationships
1. Keep in better contact with my friends and family. Phone calls, emails, cards... so they know I love them, because I so do!!! NO MORE HERMIT TENDENCIES. Winter or not- I MUST keep in contact with friends. No disappearing. I am not a bear.
2. Buy Derrick more gifts... do things for him that I like when he does for me:)
3. Play with my kids more.
4. Be more proactive in relationships- make the first move more.
5. Stop sweating the small stuff in relationships, and also the stuff I can not change. Dwell on the positive, not the negative.

Food Connection

I'm sitting here watching yet another episode of the show "Hoarders" on netflix. I have heard of this show, but WOW is it riveting. I'm watching it with only part of my mind, because the other very large part of my mind is rearranging the art supply/lizard stuff that has taken up residence in my kitchen. This show is inspiring me.

Before "Hoarders", Derrin and I watched the show "Heavy", which is about compulsive eaters and lifestyle changes. That show, while making me tear up repeatedly while watching their struggles, actually made me feel better. Why? Because I am in the midst of a very restrictive diet myself, and I too am surrounded by delicious things to eat.

I must hold on to the hope that there will be HUGE dividends health wise for all of this perseverance. So far, the hardest moment to stay the course was last weekend while camping. Camping while on food restrictions is a purely masochistic thing to do. I knew that when I was agreeing to go, but I went anyway.

On this particular camping journey, my dear husband remembered to bring our ice cream maker. This was our forth camping trip this summer, and every time he meant to bring the machine and he remembered this time. It was a nice treat for our fellow campers and the kids. I had a great idea of adding marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers to the ice cream mix, but it was mostly a plot to get the temptations out of my camper and unable to travel home with me. It was a little depressing for me, but it created nice memories for the kiddos, I'm sure.

I have more empathy for my mom's struggle with her special anti-cancer diet now. I've always known how huge food is in socialization. However, knowing it mentally compared to actually being faced with being the restricted one are very different things.

*I was the one who shopped for all of the awesome camping food that I would not be eating. *I helped prepare some of the awesome things that I would not be eating (although Derrick did the lion's share of that, bless that man), and *I mostly ignored the deliciousness all around me as I ate my lean protein and vegetables.

But, when I sat there surrounded by people eating the decedent Camping Ice Cream that I'd help make, I had little envy darts shooting out all over. I carefully made myself stare into the campfire, sip my iced tea, and try to ignore the gasps of mutual agreement that this may indeed have been the best ice cream any man has been know to consume.

I understand a bit of the reluctance my mom had in committing the rest of her life to the absence of such pleasures. Like her, I have given up many things that I enjoyed in the name of health, whether that be for physical, emotional or spiritual health. However, food (and I'm talking about anything that isn't lean meat or leafy green veges) is one of those things that I have always counted on for pleasure and comfort.

Giving up comfort food has brought up some weird feelings for me. On some level, a part of me is screaming, "COME ON! Food is the one thing we have left! What is the point of being alive is we can't even have this one last thing?!?" I could rebut that thinking with things like music, reading, love, connection, art, and a lot of other things that do point to reasons for 'being alive', but the 'quietly screaming level girl' is not a great listener or a great reasoner. She's just too hungry for that.

I like this new connection I now have with my mom; this new understanding. I have had feelings of anger and frustration with my mom ever since she died. I've been mad that she didn't stay on her diet better. My sadness has been mixed in with so many 'if onlys', If only she would have stayed on her diet she would still be here. But, she stayed on her diet for years, that's why she lived so many years beyond a stage four cancer diagnoses. I am only a week into these food restrictions, and I'm sure I have the smallest inkling of what she went through. No wonder she needed to know that her diet wasn't going to be the forever kind. It doesn't even matter about the diet anyways. For all of my frustration and sadness aimed at that diet, the truth is my mom didn't choose to get colon cancer. The truth is she fought tooth and nail, and now I have more understanding of the emotional and spiritual muscle it took to fight that fight. And I appreciate that she did that mostly for us, for the people who love(d) her. It's huge that she did that.

Mom has been on my mind a lot lately. It's been almost exactly a year ago that the real downturn happened. I can't believe that it has been a year. It's like realizing somehow you've lived through the first year of becoming blind, or deaf, or losing a limb. We are still alive and going forward, but life will never be right until she is with us again.

She has been showing up in my dreams more and more.

Some of today was spent searching for her in our old family videos. I found her in more than I anticipated, which made me happy. They are all on old analog 8mm video tapes- I thought that I might be able to make digital recordings of the videos being played on tv, but the quality is pretty poor. Either I need to find a way to directly transfer the videos to my computer, or I need to send them out somewhere to have it done. I'd like to not have to drag out all of the old tapes and recorder every time we want to watch the videos. I was surprised at how many videos we have of the kids growing up too. THAT was nice to realize.

I have two new pages above now. There is one with Mom's Slideshow (finally figured out how to get that online), and another one with old videos of the kids and whatever I could find of Mom. Like I said, the quality isn't great yet, and I have a lot more to put up there (just a few up there so far), but it's been a fun little project and it makes me happy that the videos are so accessible to myself and anyone else who would like to watch them.