Journeys....

I had a whiplash moment switch from WOO HOO! to oh holy fuck today.

I got on my treadmill knowing I had one more workout to complete for one of the two series for November. Gold star time. Getting that badge even though I had to take off two weeks with Covid. Even with not being 100% after testing negative. I was 36 minutes away from being done DONE with that series. 

I even did a little happy song during warmups. Thirty six....oooh ooh...Thirty six and I did it. I diiiiid it...wooo oooh...

Then the workout started and I clicked over to the screen that shows me the overall workout and...

Oh holy fuck. Like literally out loud. Oh holy fuck. What you are looking at is a workout that the majority is spent at a 13% incline. Thirteen percent. Oh my god... so much for a thirty six minute easy to finish this series out workout. Okay...well. 

Got that badge though. 

And it was a really good finish to the series. Strong finish. Not just because it was a 13% incline hike up a mountain in Bhutan to hang some prayer flags but...strong. 

The whole workout series has been about happiness. How do you find it? What do you need to do to get it? And after a year of reading and rereading self help books it sort of fit in with that theme. The books I enjoyed the most were in that personal contentment realm. The ones I liked the least were how to be a better cog in the corporate wheel. 

And today's was the two different trainers that had been trading off workouts, hiking together and talking about what they had learned, what they were going to take away from their time in Bhutan. And this is where I gasped out a few yes, that's rights. (13% INCLINE! yes, I was breathing a little deep)

Casey Gilbert, one of the trainers, had talked before about how the past couple of years had been hard for him. He was trying to really drive himself to greater feelings of accomplishment in his training career and it had been really hard. The pandemic hit that industry hard. But he had pivoted to doing things online and with iFit and he was doing okay. Success. But how much is enough? He talked about feeling lost. How there were more times than not that he'd wake up in the morning and just not feel the joy in life. And he recognized and acknowledged he had a good life. Good marriage. Good kids. Good career. Just he felt very meh about it all. (Of course for those of us playing along at home this was the time we were all saying, dude, this is depression, go to a doctor, it's okay.)

So in this wrap up workout he was talking to Kenton Cool about how he had come to Bhutan, agreed to do this series, with the plan of finding happiness. Of actually being able to say, ah ha, this is it and this is what I need to do. But while he found moments of real joy and real happiness during the hikes, during the meetings with the Buddhist monks, he still woke up some of the days thinking...meh.

And then he had a moment...

That's okay. 

It's okay to not be happy all the time. Happiness is actually moments. 

Yes! That! 

We often get really wrapped up in trying to be happy that we lose the plot. We think that true happiness means happy all the time. And it just doesn't. It can't. Nobody is always happy. If you are happy all the time happy just becomes normal. Not something special or extra or different. 

Happy. Sad. Angry. Pensive. Meh. These are all pieces of who you are. 

Me? I strive for happy more than not. But I know it's not possible to always be happy. And how fucking annoying would it be if I was? 

But also, striving to be happy, the journey to happy. That's important too.

And we often lose sight of that. That the journey we are on in life is the actual point. The way we walk through the world matters. It's not always going to be happy. Sometimes it's going to be at a 13% incline. But just keep walking. 

I got my badge today for this series but I also got that reinforcement of my life ideals. That happiness matters. That seeking it out is a worthy endeavor. And most importantly that it comes in moments. 

It was a strong finish. 

Points!

So a lot of you know I used WW back when they were still calling themselves Weight Watchers. I was a huge success story for them. They tried to get me to become a coach and join the company I had such a great success story. 

I took to the points system and followed it to the letter, or number as the case may be. I could figure out how to get the maximum value out of my day with the least amount of points. And I rarely ever, bordering on never used my bonus points. That stash they give you to have a treat or two when you wanted one, plus the ones you earned by working out. I just watched them add up in my "good" column as the weight just came right off. 

It worked for me. Every meeting you'd weigh in and if you had lost the "right" amount of weight you got a gold star. YOU GOT A GOLD STAR. And once you had so many gold stars you got trinkets. And once you reached your goal weight you got even bigger trinkets. 

And then even if you'd reached your goal weight if you kept losing weight you got more gold stars. YOU COULD EARN GOLD STARS FOREVER.

Weight Watchers had all of the disclaimers that if you had an eating disorder this was not the program for you. And I didn't have an eating disorder. I mean not anymore. It had been since high school since I had "dieted" by just not eating because that was easier than trying to count calories. I mean living off of caffeine and nicotine at 17 didn't count anymore in my 40s right? 

And I'd never been hospitalized or gotten too terribly thin. I just didn't have a good relationship with food. 

BUT I have a great relationship with gold stars. 

When I was about 15 pounds under the goal weight I set I saw a picture of myself where I didn't know who I was looking at. Literally. I saw the photos from an event I had gone to and there was this really skinny woman in one of them. Not healthy looking thinner. But kind of haggard looking skinny. And it took me a long time to realize that was me. But once I saw it I could see it in the mirror. Before that I saw the five more pounds I wanted to lose to get to that magical place that lives in the back of my brain. 

I'm not built to be skinny. My bone structure doesn't lend itself to that. My hips are always going to be broad. It's just a matter on if it's a rounded broad or a jutting hip bone, but my pelvis developed in such a way that my hips will always be wide. Nasty trick of nature my pelvic opening ended up narrowing at the same time so pushing Katie out was a bit difficult, after years of being told I had good child bearing hips. Well no...

I've also got large boobs and a round butt. Well usually. What I ended up with when I first did Atkins (RAPID weight loss and then a pretty steady regain) and the WW loss was a flatter rear end and kind of empty sack boobs. Neither one is my preference. I actually like my curves and my soft spots. Which I know is hard to reconcile with the years I spent trying to get rid of them. I just wanted to be my shape, only smaller. 

And I loved those gold stars.

I tried going back to WW one more time after gaining back a little bit of the too much weight lost but felt right away that trigger cock and knew I was going to be off to the races losing more and more again. 

It wasn't healthy for me. It was the exact wrong program for me. It triggered a new level of disordered eating and it took a long time for me to leave all of that good food, bad food, low point, high point, background noise behind. 

So when I saw a headline about the CEO of WW coming out and saying that they now realize their approach to weight was all wrong and the points and the prepacked foods were not a good idea I thought...wow. This is amazing. 

Then I read further and saw that they have purchased a drug company and will now be giving semaglutide medications. You know the ones that were supposed to be for diabetics but people started losing weight on them and so a new level opened in our diet and weight loss industry. 

There are a lot of problems with these meds, I mean just start with the fact that this is a lifetime commitment. As soon as you stop getting the injections the weight comes back. And as weight likes to do it brings friends. It's also not some sort of easy path. People report that they are ill while on them. Nausea is a big side effect. And then there is a whole other social aspect. Why do people need to be thin?

I mean, you all know that's the piece I've struggled with my whole life. I'm never going to be thin. But I am healthy. I am fit. I keep an eye on blood work so I can fix health problems. But being fat isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's a body type. Just like being skinny. Or being in the middle. Fat is only a problem so they can sell you weight loss products. 

And now WW has realized that the points system wasn't the way to go. Medication is the way to go. 

Yeah, they were wrong. The got that part right. But they just went more wrong instead of better. 

Quiet...

The cats are sleeping in sunbeams. 

Brent is sitting on the couch reading news stories.

I'm in the office writing. 

The girls left a couple of hours ago to drive back to Bend after spending the holiday weekend with us and the house is quiet. 

Very quiet. 

It was nice having them here. Katie enjoyed her Thanksgiving more this year than she did last year when she came on her own. It's hard when you start establishing your own family away from your birth family. You have to find the balancing act of time with each set, or time with both. She's figuring it out. 

I've mentioned before that we feel really lucky to have had her to ourselves for so long, but at the same time I am very happy for her that she's finding her own way now as well. Friends and girlfriends and a life of her own. It's all very good for her. 

So this year she had Amber and Slushy come with her to our house instead of leaving them behind and visiting on her own. 

Granted last year Brent had Covid and Katie and I were in the wait and see mode hoping we didn't catch it as well. She was really worried because if she tested positive she would be rehabbing up here instead of at home. And not only would she be missing her people, she would be missing work. It was all a little stressful. 

This year she is off work until next Friday. She brought her girlfriend and her roommate. They came up Wednesday evening and left this afternoon. The weather was good. The roads are clear. They ate, they watched football with us, we played a couple of board games. They fussed over the cats. She didn't miss anybody or wish someone else was here or she was someplace else. 

So it was a good holiday.

All of that being said, I love my quiet house. 

I love my lazy sunbeam worshipping cats.

I love my quiet husband sitting and reading his news.

And I love being able to sit and write without feeling like I'm being a rude host. 

We all have adjusted to living our own lives. 

I never would have believed it if you had told me 12 years ago when I did the ugly cry when she flew back to school after being home for the holidays. To believe that we would all adjust to living apart from each other. I mean, logically, I knew it would have to happen. It had happened for Brent and I when we left home, but surely it wouldn't happen with Katie. She would come right back to us and live in our house for the rest of her life after college. That would be fine, right? 

Of course it wouldn't have been. 

But 12 years ago me had not yet fully embraced that her job was done. The day to day part of it anyway. I tell everyone that you work yourself out of full time and into consulting as a parent. And then eventually even the consulting gig is very rare. We are well into that part. She might ask an opinion but most likely she won't. 

She's a full grown person living a full grown life. 

And it's a lot noisier than ours. 

The house is quiet again. 

It was a good weekend.  

Delayed Grief...

Kevin died a year ago this past Tuesday. Today is the day his facebook friends found out he was gone. My feed is filled with grief today as people mark the year. 

I wrote about him on my Thirty Days of Thanks on the 21st. He shares the 21st with Jack (Brent's father). Jack's birthday, Kevin's death day. Life and death marked together as is the way in my family. I'm not sure yet if it's a good poetic reminder or a fucking gut punch. But it is. So I hold space for both when they happen.

But for three days those of us where weren't local didn't know he was gone. In our minds and hearts he was still alive. Delayed grief without realizing it was delayed. 

Kevin and I would have had a really deep philosophical talk about it if it hadn't been him who had died. First he would have taken a walk down to the local dispensary, and then we would have talked about when the death actually occurs, is it when the person stops living or when the people they love all find out, does it happen in stages? The people who are closest find out and death starts. Like a ripple in a pond maybe, until the farthest circle happens death isn't complete. Schrodinger's cat for sure would have been mentioned.  

We had a lot of deep talks while he was high and I was just my normal off kilter self. I miss that. His altered state and my normal were the same wavelength but with different life experiences. So we understood each other but also got new perspectives and new things to ponder. And also new weird food combinations to try. Sometimes the things I would come up with to eat when Brent was travelling made Kevin seriously doubt that I have never gotten stoned. And also try them for himself. 

But...

Watching the grief reminders spread this year has reminded me how many people he shared a wavelength with. In different ways. He was a multitude contained in one person. A puzzle piece with all of the different edges that could fit in with a variety of pictures. He meant and still means a lot to a lot of people all over the world.

And, to go back to the rings in a pond analogy, if we are all still remembering and holding that thought is he gone? 

Does anyone die while there are people still holding their memory?

What is the "us" part of us anyway? Is it what we hold in our own bodies or is it what other people hold of us in their hearts? What makes us, us?

I don't fear death. When I die this existence is over. There is no reason to fear it, there was no me before I was born, there will be no me after I die. I don't have existential fears over the prebirth time so why would I have it about the after death?

But the difference between before I was born and after I die will be other people having memory of me. 

I did not exist before. But after I die part of me will live on in the memories of those I leave behind. 

Life after death.

Is that what it really means?

And trying to follow all of that makes you understand why Kevin got stoned...

I miss you, my friend. 

We all miss you. 

 

Family Cycles...

Brent and I were grocery shopping on Saturday picking up the bulk of what we will need for Thanksgiving. Katie is coming home and bringing her girlfriend and their roommate with her. Five for dinner instead of our usual three. 

And because I have so many dietary restrictions and they have a few allergies as well we've been trying to make sure that there is food for everyone. One of the things we've been trying to figure out is the gluten free aspects. We've gotten really used to eating gluten free and Katie hasn't been bothered by it when she's been home but I know it's different. Especially where breads and such are concerned. We also wanted to make sure that we had things they wanted to drink in the house. 

So we are picking up those things that we normally don't have. Some gluten filled wonders. Some drinks. And weighing the options on other things. Should we get this? Should we get that? What do you think? And basically trying to be good hosts for Katie's girlfriend and friend. 

And I had to stop and tell Brent how I really appreciated how hard his mother tried with me. I've talked before about the challenges we had in our relationship but I can see how hard she tried to make sure I was thought about and taken care of. 

For instance I was really sick when Brent and I got married. I had been for a very long time. Just couldn't shake it. And one of the things that came with that particular illness was a wrenching cough. I would cough so hard it would make me vomit. Just awful. Liquid cough syrups are the best for that sort of cough. Or at least they were at the time. But I hate liquid cough syrup. It's almost impossible for me to choke it down. (quick aside, learned very late in life that that is actually a normal thing for people on the autism spectrum, that if there is a food texture or taste that you don't like you literally cannot swallow it. Your throat constricts and game over. Which actually makes me wonder if what we think of as autism is actually a remnant of a survival skill from our ancestors, can't swallow poisonous plants. Anyway, back to our story...) So Ann went to the pharmacy and made them crack open bottle after bottle of liquid cough medicine until she found one that had the mildest flavor for me to take. 

How amazing is that? 

She was challenging in a lot of ways but she really tried hard to make sure we had a positive relationship. 

As I stood in that grocery store trying to decide if a woman I don't really know would like vanilla ice cream over french vanilla ice cream I understood on a deeper level than I had before. 

I mean, I understood, logically, that both Jack and Ann had strained to zero relationships with their parents and they understood that if they wanted any sort of relationship with Brent that path was going to go through me as soon as we decided to get married. I got it. I knew what they were doing. 

But Saturday I felt it. 

That feeling of how important it was. 

Katie has a girlfriend. They've been together for over a year now. I don't know if they will be together forever but as for right now they are planning a future together. All decisions are made together. Katie bases things she does around Slushy's wellbeing. 

And because of that it's important for me to make our relationship a decent one as well. For it to feel comfortable in my house. 

I understood before what Ann was doing. Now I feel it. 

You Have to Believe...

She had always believed in magic. 

It was hard to hold on to that belief as she got older. 

Not because she lost her belief but because others tried their best to take it from her.

They were constantly trying to educate away the small everyday magics in her life.

Dew drops on plants first thing in the morning when there had been no rain. Lightning flashing across in the sky in patterns that looked like letters if she could only remember the letters she had seen before. The different patterns of clouds in the sky. Some fluffy and high like cotton candy, some flat and scattered like they had been painted by a giant brush. 

Every class she had, worked to explain the phenomena that she saw. And the answer was never magic. 

And it wasn't okay with them that she didn't want to know. You couldn't clap your hands over your ears and say NO SPOILERS! and make them stop. You had to know this thing and that thing for the test. And if you failed the test they didn't let you keep your belief they made you take even more classes where they spent even more time explaining away everything that was beautiful. She couldn't find any way to get out of it.

When she was in middle school one of her classmates was allowed to leave class during certain science lessons. He was excused due to his family's religious beliefs. They couldn't make him learn something he didn't believe in and he had a note saying so. 

Her classmate hated that he had to leave. He hated that he was singled out and made to feel different. He hated that the kids teased him and called him a fundy. Even though they didn't really know what a fundy was. 

She actually thought being a fundy sounded kind of nice. Fun was right there in the word. And it meant that you didn't have to learn certain things. Though he was never dismissed during the classes she would want to be dismissed during. He mostly skipped evolution and sex education. Which evolution was kind of magic even when they tried to explain it away so she didn't mind that one. He also was rarely allowed to watch the movies the class got as special treats. Which seemed really unfair but he didn't want to make them watch the only movies his parents would have approved. Which when she asked him one day what those movies were he said he didn't want to talk about it. Not fun at all.  

By the time she was in high school she had learned that religious people did not like their beliefs compared to magic. Even though a lot of it was magical thinking and she never could figure out what the difference was between a miracle and magic. But somehow they knew, and it was important to them that it was different. 

She worked her way through various clubs and organizations. Most of the time when people talked about magic they meant tricks. And they wanted to teach her how to do them too. Which was worse than not having anyone else who loved magic around her. Those people were as bad as her teachers in school. They took something that was magic and made it a trick. And then told people it was magic even though it was a trick and could be taught. It made her head and her heart hurt. 

She tried a group of wiccans but they got mad at her when she asked about magic. We DON'T do that! That's insulting! Well, yeah, it was insulting. How could they call themselves witches when what they really were was just a group of women who liked to camp? Even the ones who did things like charge crystals by the full moon made up pseudosciencey sounding things to explain away what they were clearly hoping was magic. 

Sometimes there would be someone who seemed like they believed as well. They did things like building fairy doors in their gardens. But usually when she talked to them about it they just claimed it was art. Nobody believed fairies really lived in your garden after all. 

It was almost impossible to hold on to the magic that seemed so easy when she was younger. 

Thank goodness she had Clyde. He believed as well. And she trusted him when he spoke to her. When he would tell her that she was right. That there was magic in the world. That the dew drops were really left from the fairies who played on the roses in the night. That the lightning did make letters and sometimes whole words but so quickly that most people couldn't read their secrets. That giants did paint the clouds in the sky. Even though some of them just called it art and pretended there weren't humans there to appreciate the patterns. She trusted Clyde. 

Even though people tried and tried to say dogs were more trustworthy than cats. 

And Go!

Easing my way back into my routines. Which of course would all be blown up this week because of the holiday anyway. But starting to ease back in. 

It's interesting because I really wasn't that sick with Covid. Not like you think of being sick. I had a fever for basically a day. I had a little dry cough that would come and go but it was like *cough, cough* done for another 8 hours. I was really congested for two days. I had a random headache but nothing that was bad. Like a head unpleasant. I've been much sicker with colds for sure. But the fatigue...oh my goodness the fatigue. 

And that's still here. We went to a hockey game on Friday (I tested negative on Thursday) and I only made it through two periods before we headed home. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. At a HOCKEY game. And today we are going to go see a musical but it was supposed to be go to the musical then go to the hockey game and we are skipping the hockey game because I cannot imagine I would be able to stay perky enough for that long to enjoy it. 

And my lungs are finally, I want to say clearing, but it's not like when you have a phlegmy cough or that sort of lung congestion. They've just felt heavy. Like breathing was a little harder than normal. Diminished capacity for sure. But that is finally starting to lift. Which I have to think is tied to the exhaustion. Not getting enough oxygen makes you tired.

So now I'm ready to start facing the world again. I mean I still have a bum arm so it's still going to be light work until I can get the procedure done and go through rehab, but pre Covid routine anyway. 

Which means sitting down to write (aren't you lucky that you are getting a health update/planning document to start?) and tomorrow I am going to try and workout. 

I haven't been on the treadmill, which is what I was reduced to since I can't lift weights right now, in two weeks. I told Brent I can't decide if I'm feeling so sluggish because I'm still recovering or if I'm feeling so sluggish because I haven't been able to work out. He said yes. Which is most likely true. 

Now, I do not believe I will be able to go at the pace or the length I was doing before I got sick. I don't feel like I have that level of energy or lung capacity yet. But at least I'll try and do SOMETHING. And start building back up. 

Because I need to move to be able to continue moving. And that's my biggest priority. I want to live to be 100 but a healthy 100 not a husk of my former self 100. So that means getting moving again. 

So here we are. At the end of my personal pandemic (now endemic) saga and ready to start back on daily life. 

And I'm really thankful for that. Even though we are past the part where people were dying by the thousands from this. Even though it's become just part of life that people get Covid and are home sick for a bit. Even though it's not that big of a deal anymore...Even though.  Ann still died from Covid and I still get a little bit of panic each time someone I know tests positive. Including me. 

I think a lot of us are still suffering from a little Covid induced PTSD and it's okay. It was a huge trauma we all went through together. I think it would be weird if we weren't a little shell shocked over it. 

But now the trick is to get moving again.