Monthly Archives: November 2012

Weekly Grace, #47.

  1. Dental troubles of past year are over.
  2. Being able to wrap up open items at work before the long weekend.
  3. Thanksgiving with some of my Colorado “family”.
  4. New fashion boots to show off at work next week.
  5. New pots and pans to inspire cooking up new recipes. (Even if said pots and pans have been hidden in a box for a couple months.)

Weekly Grace, #46.

  1. Setting up the humidifier so I can breathe again in the mornings.
  2. New recipes that turned out pretty good on the first attempt.
  3. Run Like a Girl (book).
  4. Making Mom laugh.
  5. Moonrise Kingdom (movie).

Here to stay, for now.

The tagline of my good friend Kerri‘s blog reads “diabetes doesn’t define me, but it helps explain me”.

Endocrine disorders and mental health conditions don’t define me, but they help explain me.

There’s something else, though.

The reason I ended up in Colorado doesn’t define me, but it helps explain me.

***

It was just another ordinary day, with another ordinary walk at lunch, a few weeks back.

All of a sudden, someone intersected my path. Someone who I had only met once before in person, but with whom I had interacted with plenty online. Someone who tried to convince me to stick around Colorado all summer long. Someone with an completely strange intertwined connection, if you consider my life as it was twenty-five years ago.

On that day, I could admit I could stay in Colorado for awhile. On that day, someone was headed on a different path, but did not quite know it yet.

I could shout, but what about all the convincing for me to stay here. But I am not.

The thing is, I had already decided to stay. I started to make plans for a life here, well outside the reason I ended up in Colorado fourteen years ago.

***

Sometimes I wonder if I am just scared about more change – so much having had happened in the past three years.

Sometimes I wonder if I can handle some of the responsibility I intend to take on in the next few months with graduate school and a mortgage.

But sometimes I think I can do it all. I can really do this, I can redefine myself here.

Weekly Grace, #45.

  1. Charging up the light box…and beginning to use it, if not a few weeks late.
  2. Turning last week’s Halloween wig into a new hair color for me.
  3. Using a day off to visit Vincent (Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum).
  4. Five logged workouts this week.
  5. Being confident about one section of the GRE, anyways.

Seven year itch.

Tomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of this blog. It has endured name changes and hosting changes, all while providing me with an outlet for writing about life…and its changes.

Each year, I managed to learn something new.

2006:  Thirty kind of rocked. And I kind of rocked thirty.

2007:  When everything else in life seems out of control, you can control what you do with your hair (said old co-worker A). Here’s a recent example:

2008:  Change is good, even if it comes slowly.

2009:  Being in the hospital and having major surgery sucks.

2010:   There is absolutely no way to know what lies ahead at any given moment in life.

2011:  ”It looks like freedom, but it feels like death.” – Leonard Cohen

2012:  Resilience. 

(And tattoos don’t really hurt…OK OK, it’s a good sort of hurt.)

Weekly Grace, #44.

  1. Halloween fun at work, including my purply goth costume that garnered lots of compliments.
  2. Pumpkin…anything.
  3. Remembering that catnipped cats are hilarious cats.
  4. Rocking out while cleaning and reorganizing the bathroom.
  5. Being grateful for good access to medicine and diabetes supplies, when so many are without in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy…and donating to the Red Cross.

Friday night high.

Friday night, and I am drinking glass of water after glass of water to quench a dry mouth.

All because of the 230 mg/dl staring back at me after a dinner of chicken, vegetables, and a smaller side of pasta.

I have not slowed down like I said I would, though the new thyroid replacement dose seems to be working. I ended up worrying more about the things I cannot control (work stuff), I ended up procrastinating more about the things under my control (finding a place to live in the city where I work), and I ended up taking on a new side project (studying for the GRE).

And, I thought I could go back to being mostly pescetarian, as I did briefly in my late teens. In fact, I thought I would be writing about my experience exploring lower carb vegetarian options, not writing about a blood glucose reading that really bites.

Clearly, I need to listen to the self who wrote that post six weeks ago. Slow down and stop complicating my life by worrying and procrastinating. It does not necessarily have to mean giving up on grad school or on trying to eliminate most meat and poultry. It does mean ignoring the things I cannot control and taking action on the things I can control. (But if I can rock the GRE and start developing a lower carb vegetarian recipe stack, all the better for doing the things I aspire towards.)

Because without slowing down, there is more opportunity for a Friday night high, which really crimps my style.

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