Let That Guard Down...

..and that was a mistake.

I went in last month and adjusted all of my goal numbers for what I would need to hit each month to make my numbers by the end of the year. I had done really well at the beginning with some things and not great at others so I just needed to rebalance and know what I was aiming for so I could hit the right numbers. And it wasn't really terrible at all. I could do less than I was thinking and still hit most everything. Realized that the odds were I wasn't going to actually submit anything this year but that was okay. I mean I was doing so well on everything else.

So of course I just did nothing this month. I mean I know it's not over yet, but we leave for Disney on Saturday so basically this week is all that I have left for September and well...this is blog number four for the month which puts me five under for what I should do. What?

How does that happen?

I mean I was so focused on making it through August because August is the fucking worst and then September hit and I just...

Stopped. 

I mean I've really done nothing. 

What the hell?

How often does that happen? I mean, I assume it happens to all of us. We get so focused on getting past one thing, or getting one thing done that as soon as it's over we just kind of stop for awhile. Or slow way down. And then the days all slide and aside from the things we have to do none of the extras get done. 

I mean...I've taken care of the house, I've kept us fed, I checked in on friend's cats while they were in my happy place, but I let everything else kind of slide. 

Oh and I looked at a lot of houses and put some offers in on them. 

And I did a little bit of planning towards the big sort we are going to have to do if/when we move. 

And I watched a TV show that my kid recommended, which doesn't seem like doing anything but when you are retired you totally get to count things like TV shows as a thing you completed. 

But I didn't do the things I was thinking I wanted to do in September. 

Like write. And actually sort (past the plan part into the actual sort part). And change up my work out routine. I mean I've changed it up, but that's more often than not been eh...I could skip it today. Which is SUCH a bad habit. 

But the PT I was doing just tweaked everything and made all workouts uncomfortable so it was hard to get motivated. And now that I've been out of the routine...well...

Which that's the other thing. I did a lot of PT trying to get my Achilles and my toe to stop hurting. And that was a bust. So now I'm doing the mental reframing that I didn't actually waste over a thousand dollars (AND WE HAVE GOOD INSURANCE!) on something that absolutely was a waste of time, and not just a waste of time but a painful waste of time into I now know that what I was doing was good and I do really know my own body very well and I can get to the point where I only have discomfort at times instead of ongoing pain. And I can do that without spending more on PT. WHICH WAS SO EXPENSIVE AND DIDN'T WORK! I mean...I'm reframing. And it does actually feel better now. Still hurts a bit but it's improving now that I'm not stressing it out daily. And I'm hopeful that it will handle Disney well.

Because I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND! 

Which happens in just a few days and that means if I don't write daily, multiple times possibly, and read enough to finish a couple more books this week, and honest to god I need some fiction inspiration, I had such hopes for creepy little Grace, if those things don't start to flow then September will be gone and I will be panicking for October.

The good news though is I see 2022 as being a chill year with very few goals. Not no goals, we saw what happened in 2020 with no goals, but very few, or at least easily reachable. 

Of course I say that now during the what the hell happened to September moments, we will see what happens when I reach all my goals with a mad dash December....

And this counts. 

Gotta watch letting that guard down. 

Disneyland!

We're going to Disneyland in two weeks. Our last trip as a family before the pandemic was Disney World and we are ending the pandemic with Disneyland. 

Even though technically Disney World was during the beginning of the pandemic and we just didn't realize it at the time. Or hadn't grasped it yet. 

And the pandemic isn't actually over, we just thought it would be mostly over when we booked this trip. And then Delta and the anti-vaccine crowds and well...

We are doing our second trip to Disney during a pandemic is what I'm saying. 

So weird.

At least this time it will be a little limited crowds and masking in spaces where you can't distance and we've all been vaccinated so even if we get a breakthrough case it should be mild and no big deal. Instead of last time when we weren't protected at all and the crowds were insane and we were just really lucky the the petri dish that Florida turned into hadn't really gotten cooking just yet.

So anyway...

Disneyland.

I've been going back and forth between super excited and sort of bummed. The super excited was when we booked and the outlook was so rosy for a disease eased Fall. And then the Halloween stuff was going to be happening and it was all just lining up perfectly. 

The bummed started when we saw numbers creeping up and started to worry about cancellations. 

I'm still not 100% positive everything will happen. I mean, I'm pretty sure. The political will to shut everything down when a large number of people are vaccinated and willing to mask up doesn't seem to be there. But after the past year and a half I'm not willing to take anything for granted. 

We also had our flight shifted because that's a thing that happens a lot now. Airlines are having a hard time with staffing and booking and they are shifting and cancelling flights at crazy rates right now. We were really lucky going back and forth to Albuquerque that the only changes were minor. But they changed the time of our flight so much on Sunday that we ended up booking a flight out for Saturday instead. Which meant giving up tickets to the Timbers we had for Saturday and adding another day to our hotel in California. The flight change was free but the rest? Not so much.

BUT...the good news is that means a full day on Sunday instead of a half day in the parks. Which is good because there are no fast passes anymore. We are going to be going old school with lines and waits. We've not done Disney like that in so long I have no idea how long it's actually going to take to get through things. Our very efficient use of Magic Hours (also no longer a thing) and Fast Passes meant we could see everything and get in the shopping we wanted in two days easy. Now? We don't really know. But we have three so there is cushion there. 

The second biggest change we've seen is the dining. Disney World has this crazy busy system and you have to book restaurants months in advance and it's so stressful. Disneyland has always been a little more relaxed. Some of the special events you wanted to book early, but for the most part just a few days or even day of was fine. 

Umm...well. 

Not anymore. 

As the woman who helped me change my hotel reservations said Fingers crossed and Pixie Dust that we get in day of places. I did get one dinner reservation made but breakfast is a no go. 

I'm also having a challenge finding where we should try to eat. There is this really great service to contact for special diets which is not really staffed right now. I could fill in a request with my dining reservation 30 days in advance and that way make sure a chef comes to talk to me before I order, but I can't get basic information like "Does your gluten free bread have potato starch?" And because Nightshades aren't one of the Big 8 (I think it's 8) allergens they don't even track them on their allergy menus so I can't actually order anything just off menu without talking to someone. It's going to be tricky. 

I did tell Brent that I can eat a salad or a bunless burger and be fine pretty much anywhere. So I'm hoping that's true. A lot of their gluten free options are spicy or with chicken so if I can't find bunless and salads I will be eating popcorn and fruit from the fruit stands. 

Probably not even the worst way of eating I've ever done in Disney, to tell the truth.

But it is a little stressful. Disney is a comfort food vacation typically. We know what to expect. We know it's going to be pretty smooth. We know the work arounds for crowds and times of year to go and not to go. And this time? None of that is in play. 

So I'm trying to make sure I hold on to excited and also not let a different experience change my Disney love. We're all doing the best we can right now, even Disney. So who knows how it will go.

Fingers crossed and pixie dust!

Report Cards...

Other students got notes on their report cards like: "A joy to have in class." or "Needs to speak up more during class participation."

She didn't get either of those. Nobody ever encouraged her to share more. Or to participate in the general discussion. 

No teacher would ever describe her as a joy in class. She wasn't a bother either. Not a trouble maker. Just very quiet. Kept to herself. And that wasn't really an issue to anyone.

There was one time in third grade when her teacher seemed as though he was going to encourage her to speak up, but then he stopped. 

She had to imagine he mentioned her in the teacher's lounge and was corrected from this path. 

Something that didn't happen to her either. 

Being corrected from her path. 

That's what the school she attended called it. Students weren't wrong. They just needed some correction. Which really meant they were wrong. Like areas of improvement meant you we're messing up and need to fix this now. But people like to use soft words and phrases so they say things like areas of improvement and in her school, corrections on your path. 

So she imagined that her third grade teacher had gotten a correction to his path and from that point forward left her alone with her thoughts.

Which was fine with her. 

People only pretended to want to know what other people thought anyway. 

And they really only wanted to know what other people thought if it agreed with what they thought. 

She saw it all the time when everyone around her would argue over everything from movies to music to politics to fashion. They didn't want to know what someone else thought, they wanted to know who agreed with them so they could cull the herd. 

Figuratively, of course. 

They weren't really culling. Just curating. Tightening their bubbles. Reinforcing their own beliefs with a bunch of other people who believed the same thing.

She didn't fit into any of their bubbles so they all left her alone. 

Some by instinct.

Some by experience.

Some by hearing the stories.

Which is what she think happened in third grade to that teacher. He must have heard the story. 

Kindergarten. 

Reading a story in sharing circle about counting sheep to get to sleep. 

"How do you get to sleep?"

She remembered everyone answering the question. She still had opinions about their answers. Though she had always kept them to herself.

"My mother sings me a lullaby" I've heard your mother sing in carpool, I'd try and get away from that as quickly as possible too.

"I count backwards from 100." Nobody was really sure he could even count forward to 100 but sure, he counts backwards. 

"I count sheep!" Oh you do not. You've never even heard of counting sheep before this story!

"I count sheep too!" Oh come on now, this is silly!

"Me too! I count all the sheep. But my sheep jump over a fence!" That seems really active for sleep time.

"My sheep all stand in a field." Well, they are sheep. What do you want them to do? I guess maybe jump over a fence.

And then...

"Grace? What about you? What do you do to get to sleep?"

"I imagine someone sewing my eyes shut so that no light gets in and I can just fall into the dark."

And that started a year of seeing the school counselor. And then the barrage of therapists outside of the school when that did not correct her from her path. Even though no one could explain why her answer was any worse than picturing livestock jumping over a fence. 

But it got her out of class discussions. 

And it kept her from getting remarks on her report card. 

......

She closed her eyes and imagined the first stitch closing out the light. Deep breaths. Total darkness. Her own path. No corrections needed. 

Wake Me Up...

Dude...so August. Am I right? 

It was, to put it mildly, humbling. 

I really did think I could just muscle my way through and be back to normal. Or at least really close. Fake it until you make it and OF COURSE I was going to make it!

As you know that did not last long. I realized that there was no forcing my way through it. Not just yet. 

Cake and Compliments Month might have seen its last days. And you know what? That's okay. It served its purpose and we had a good run. Birthday month might now always just be August. Once I wrapped my head around that it was actually easier. 

I wasn't continually feeling like I was supposed to be feeling something different than what I was feeling. Like I was somehow letting people down by not being sunny. Even though most people wouldn't have had any idea I wasn't. I mean, we are all still in our own little bubbles for the most part. 

But anyway...I finally stopped beating myself up over not being able to just move on from the world's worst August two years ago. And once I did that it was better. I mean, I wasn't happier. I wasn't suddenly inspired to sing and dance and throw rose petals at the world, but I also wasn't trying to force a smile on a face that wanted to sit still. And sometimes that's enough. 

So...what else? 

I spent another three weeks in physical therapy. Which was a bust on one hand and really beneficial on the other. The bust is that it's not a matter of simply retraining the movement in my foot and TA DA healing. The benefit is that now I know that what I'm doing to manage the toe and ankle actually are the right things to do. Or at least the only things that can be done. See if I move the foot in a way that lines up the Achilles' tendon correctly so there isn't strain there it puts stress on my damaged big toe. But if I shift my foot to take the stress off of my toe it misaligns my tendon. There isn't a way to do both. So I have to balance it. Which is worse? Which can be managed easier? Which will do the most damage if it flairs up? 

Those are the things I was doing naturally. And the things I will go back to. Without dropping a few hours and few hundred dollars a week on PT. And without spending part of the week recovering from the manual therapy sessions. Whew!

FINALLY got some breathing room in my reading goal. Finished my reread of The Sandman series and it did what I had hoped and put me ahead by 5 books for the year. I also realized that I don't remember a bit of Y The Last Man so I might read that again. And then, because I loved it so much, another go a Saga. But I'm not sure when I will do those. I have a lot of books on my Kindle right now begging for attention. Currently reading A Slip of the Keyboard which is the second to last of the Pratchett books on my list. Technically The Shepherd's Crown is the last of the Discworld books and it's the only one of those I have left to finish that series (after how many years?) but I wanted to read his two collections of short work as well. And A Slip of the Keyboard was released before The Shepherd's Crown and it has some essays about his Alzheimer's and writing with that so it seemed like a good fit before the last book.

I also might be stalling just a little bit on finishing because I know that that book is the end. Hard stop. THE END.

Weight was pretty steady, which was good considering the amount of effort put to PT made other workouts lighter. And the fact that I ate what I wanted when I wanted to. Because it might not be cake and compliments month but it's grief month and that needs chocolate.

Writing was slow. (See August is the pits) But I am still ahead for the year by 8. I readjusted the monthly "need load" for the last quarter of the year and if I write 9 blogs a month I'll be good there. I need to hit 13 more pieces of fiction so I'm hoping for some inspiration soon. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to hit the submission goal. I have done zero effort toward that and unless something magical happens I'm not sure I will. It just hasn't been a year that felt like it needed any other rejections. 

And finally the POD/Daily Gratitude. The FMS blend of those two last month was nice but actually a bit challenging. A lot of times my gratitude isn't about something that can photographed. So it was a nice way to think about broadening or narrowing my focus as needed. And it also seemed like it made for a good stopping point for those for awhile. I'm taking my gratitude practice back to private, don't ever give up practicing gratitude, I swear it makes a huge difference in your life. And I'm stopping POD for awhile. I don't know how long. I've stopped and started a few times over the years. But for now it just seems right to stop. 

So now we are in September. Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary of Jack's death. It's the one we've lived with the longest. And the one that had receded into the background of our lives right up until Ann died and then it was super fresh again. But I think that's mellowed out again. We will see how we feel tomorrow. 

End of September we are going to Disneyland, as long as nothing changes. Still excited about the trip but not as over the moon as I was before the resurgence of Covid cases. It's not as big of a celebration as I had hoped. Not as much a return to before times normalcy as a this is how we live now normalization. Which, honestly, could be fine as well. Changes happen. All of the time. We just normally go through them slowly so we don't notice. This was a big monumental shift in life and now we adjust. 

In Disneyland. 

Yay!!

So don't wake me up when September ends, make sure you hit me up around the 24th so I don't miss the good stuff. 

Overheard and Overthought....

"...meanest thing anybody ever said to me." 

That kept replaying in her head as she went about her day. What was it? She hated missing the first part of the conversation. What could be the meanest thing that was ever said to the woman in the coffee shop? She looked so very put together. One of those women you automatically assigned a whole life story to just based on her shoes. 

Or at least she did.

They were great shoes. 

That's the problem with overhearing conversations. You never get all of it and you cannot just ask for more information. Because you were eavesdropping after all. Even if it was unintentional eavesdropping, it was still eavesdropping. But she really wanted to ask. 

What was the meanest thing anybody ever said to the woman with the great shoes? Then she wondered what was the meanest thing anybody ever said to her? 

Was there a meanest thing?

There had to be. Right? There had been a lot of mean things. Not that she had a terrible life, but everyone gets mean things said to them. Especially while you are growing up. Kids say mean things to each other all of the time. And some of those certainly stick. She still didn't wear green since Kathy McCallistar told her it made her look like a stalk of celery. Rotten celery.

Even worse were the mean things adults said to you. Careless as much as mean really. Not remembering the weight that their words carried in young minds. There was the dance instructor that recommended she try her hand at writing. Years later she entertained the idea that it was actually a compliment about her imagination, but at 7 she had assumed it was the instructor's way of implying she couldn't dance. And it could have been either really. She wasn't exactly graceful.

But were those the meanest things?

She remembered some times in high school and in college being devastated by something someone said. Though she was hard pressed to remember what was said. Just that at the time it had seemed devastating. Pints of ice cream and crying dramatically in her dorm room. But those couldn't be the meanest things since she couldn't recall what they were right? Even the things she did remember she couldn't remember why they had been so devastating at the time. 

She tossed the thought around in her head all day. What was the meanest thing? Was there a meanest? Would her meanest and the woman with the great shoes be similar? Whose would be meaner? Surely the woman with the shoes has the meanest thing said to her because it stuck out. 

She was in the grocery store when she remembered. 

It bobbed up out of the place she had buried it so long ago. 

That denial graveyard we all have in our heads. The forgetting place. The ignore it and it will go away section of her thoughts. 

But it was always there. She should have never disturbed that area. 

She could even still hear his voice. 

The casual way he said it as he got up from the table. 

He didn't even realize he was being mean. 

Just tossed off a comment and got up to go to the bathroom.

She could remember how it had made her stomach clench. The blood drain from her face. Her hand grow cold. She hadn't cried. Not right then. It had been too shocking really. 

By the time he returned to the table she had gone. Thrown what she had hoped was enough money at the bartender to cover her tab and fled. She could still remember the feeling of the world starting to close in around her. 

.....

.....

.....

"Ma'am? Do you need help finding something?"

"What? Oh...no. Sorry, just lost in thought for a moment."

The meanest thing anyone ever said to her?

The truth.

The truth was the meanest thing anyone ever said to her. 

Physical Therapy and Psychological Breakthroughs...

I hurt my Achilles tendon when I was in my 20s and it has flared off and on since then. I got treatment back then for it, but basically since then I've treated it myself with rest, ice, elevation. The basics. I finally decided this year (last year actually, part of the #52PickUp) to go in and get it looked at again. 

I also decided to have my toe that I damaged sevenish years ago looked at. The diagnosis at the time was pretty much Whelp can't do anything without surgery and that starts a whole host of other issues so deal. Kind of an over simplification, but that's what it boiled down to. I decided this year that a second opinion might be a good idea. 

So the diagnosis on the toe is, whelp, can't really do anything without surgery and that starts a whole host of other issues so deal. With the added bonus of, and honestly surgery might not actually help at all. So...

But basically there is a lot of damage in there and there is arthritis in there that is not going to get better. So I need to treat it as well as I can until there comes a time that I might have to take more drastic measures. 

So back to the Achilles. My new foot doctor sent me off to PT to see if there is something that could be done coming from that direction. For the past 6 weeks I've been going to PT twice a week and doing my PT exercises at home. 

And I've discovered that the compensating movements I have been doing for my toe throw my Achilles out of alignment. And when I focus on getting my Achilles in alignment I aggravate my toe. And on top of that when I work on the hip exercises that are supposed to pull everything together it tweaks my wonky knees. (Oh yeah, my knees, hips and ankles do not align like they are supposed to because my pelvis developed/spread quickly and the hip joints did not turn the way they should have, or something like that, it's been years since I got that diagnosis, but anyway, my hips are wide but the sockets aren't, that's what it boils down to).

So as I've tried to find the balance between all of the joints I've been frustrated. 

I would like to fix the heel pain but not at the expense of the toe and definitely not at the expense of the knees. I would like the knees to work well but I'd rather not do that at the expense of the heel. And I'd like the toe to feel better but not at the expense of the knees and heel. It's all this big circle of but what works best?

And as I was tweaking my calf raises yesterday and thinking about how I was having issues with them now but I was doing much more weight in the gym in the before times without issues I realized it was because of those tweaks. 

I would turn my foot just a touch which took enough pressure off of the forefoot so my toe didn't get angry. But because it was still an isolating move it worked the calf muscles nicely. (just not the insertion point for the tendon, apparently) And as I worked through all of this I thought, I'd rather have a sore Achilles than a sore toe. The toe is worse when it flares than the heel is. 

And that's what I told my physical therapist today. I'd rather deal with discomfort in one area than pain in another. 

And BOOM! What a moment. How often do we do this with A LOT of things? Not just a wonky ankle/toe connection but life as a whole? I know it hurts when I do X but not as much as when I do Y so I'm gonna do Y all day every day thank you very much. 

And then the follow through from Daniel today. He wasn't willing to just give up. (Partly because it's not him in pain) but wanted to try tweaking a few things and try again. His ideal is that we reach a point where I can have very little foot pain. Maybe not none, the arthritis is gonna arthritis after all, but a point where my ankle and toe aren't battling it out to see which is worse. 

If I do X it hurts but not as much as when I do Y, so I need to figure out how to do Z so it's all good. 

This all makes sense in my head. It really does.

Dealing with things that are bothering you can be really awful. Right now I am in the total dregs of August. That last stretch. Moving toward the anniversary of Mom's death, with the September anniversary of Jack's right on the horizon. It's a rough stretch. I've been just sitting with it this year. I started to try and jolly myself out of it, force a birthday month revival, but that was worse. So I decided to let that go. To sit with my feelings this month. Again. Which feels super self indulgent, but it's only been two years. This is only the second anniversary of her death. It's not actually that bad to still be raw. I mean before Mom died I had gotten to the point where Jack's death is a marking of time, a day of thinking of him a little more than normal, but it's not super painful. We live with his loss, but we don't live with the pain of it anymore. Not really. But when Mom died so close to the date that he died it made all of that churn back up again. 

But I did that the year she died. And again last year. So this year I was not going to. I was going to move right into the living with the loss but not the pain of it. And...

It hurts to face it. But it feels worse to ignore it. 

So instead I'm living with it. With the fact that living with it right now still means living with the pain of it. 

Giving myself a little more grace.

Giving myself a little wiggle room.

It will feel better when it feels better. 

Maybe next year.

And if not, then that's okay too.

We'll get there. Eventually. 

If it hurts to do X but not as much as it hurts to do Y then let's try Z.

Fifty Two I'm Through, Yeah, I'm Through with You! ... How's It Gonna Be, 53?

Just reread last year's birthday blog. I was still really raw from the year before so you can feel it in the blog. But I was hopeful. You can feel that too.

I had a few goals I wanted to reach. I had a few hopes for how the year would unfold. And honestly for the most part this year has met them. For the most part. There is one part that has fallen short and it's really casting a pall over the rest, but I'm still hopeful that it will get better. Just not as hopeful. Now it's that bare knuckled holding on to the last shred of it, growling at anyone who fucking dares to try and pry it away hope, but still hope. 

But let's recap the year and set up intentions for the next, shall we?

I set a few goals for the year in my birthday blog last year. Small ones like losing some weight so my knees would stop aching. Big ones like growing my eyebrows in. And ones that weren't goals but hopes like full menopause. And the main one, making it through.

So how did it go? Well clearly I met the main one. Because here we are. Yay! That was the main goal. It seems a little dramatic but pandemic, death surrounding us, the world falling to shit every few months in new and exciting ways. Making it through was a good solid goal and I made it. 

Losing weight? Yeah. Actually. Almost 20 pounds. Now that was due to finding out that what I was eating was making me miserable so I cut out whole groups of foods and that ended up lowering my calorie intake and the extra weight I was carrying as just inflammation in the joints BUT...it totally counts. And I do feel so much better. Like crazy amounts better. I'm still super frustrated by the fact that I had to do it. It still bums me out to have to let go of most of my favorite foods, but it has made such a difference that it is worth it. 

Growing my eyebrows in. Well...as I suspected there is a line that is just never coming back. I'm never going to have the really thick full brows of my youth. But that's okay. I can afford good eyebrow pencils to fill those spots in. It all balances out. 

As far as menopause goes. I did have one day of spotting in October and then a really light barely there period in February so not at a full year just yet. But my doctor and I both agree that I'm basically there. BOOM! 

And then there is the part of the year that just sucked. I was really hoping that by Fall this year we were going to be looking at the tail end of Covid. That vaccines would be rolling and we would all be coming back out of isolation and joining each other. And it looked like we were ahead of schedule for that. This last Spring was SO hopeful and it really seemed in our grasp to be able to move forward and then...not so much. Fuck. And having that hope get crushed made it worse. The frustration is real. The anger at those that won't do their part is tangible. The grief is still raw. That part sucked. Sucks.

So what do I want for 53?

I want it to get better.
I want the world to open back up. 
I want people to stop being so fucking selfish.
Which I get is totally ironic in a list of "I wants"

The coming year is going to be a big one for changes in my life and the way I relate to the outside world. I know it already. I know some of the things that are coming. I have hopes for some others. But I know that it's going to be a big year. And I know that there will be other things I have no idea are coming that will rock my world in good and bad ways. 

Right now I'm holding on to the hope that the world won't shut down and we will be able to have a fun family trip to Disneyland next month. It was one of those Spring optimism plans that has slowly but surely been overtaken by Fall dread. 

We are looking at houses again. This time looking for a one story place. Even with changing my diet and easing the pain I was in I still have arthritis and that's not going to go away. Better to move now while we have some flexibility than get stuck in a few years with an emergency move. 

There are other things big and small that will mark the year. There always are. 

But for now I'm facing the next year with my head up, my heart open, my hope clutched in one hand and knife to cut a bitch if she tries to take it away in the other... Hope, love, joy. Let's do this shit!

And the hashtag this year...

#Joyfully53

It's the best reminder.