Growing Older Disgracefully

A couple of weeks ago I scraped together the funds and decided to break in my Starbucks health insurance and went to see a local doctor for some minor complaints. Complaints like shooting pains in my feet after working only an hour, and the excruciating pain shooting through my hands, wrists, arms and sometimes shoulders after typing, writing or making lattes for more than a few minutes. I was sure he would tell me I had some exotic malady, and prescribe a miracle drug that would make me pain-free (and sexy). However, I was to be disappointed.

"You know, you are not young anymore."

Wow, what a diagnosis. Notyoungitis? Aged decrepititude? This is a disease I am not quite prepared to embrace, basically because the cure kind of sucks.

Hobble with me through time to last Friday. I, enamored with the heady pleasure that is health (and vision! swoon!) insurance, decided to treat my myopic peepers to a vision exam for new glasses. The optometrist performed the vision field exam twice before throwing in the towel. When I asked him what could be the culprit, he discovered lesions on my retina. The bright side, he says, is that I am not so old I need bifocals! Fabulous. My heart rejoices.

So my body is ancient, while my eyes are merely aged?

These events have caused me to do further consideration of my life. At this late age of creeping up on forty-one, I planned on having accomplished an entirely different set of goals. I did not plan on having my life's events randomly caused by others. I did not plan to be a professional reactor to people who have no idea how to react.

So it is with every bit of resolve I have not to quit all my jobs and run. Somewhere, anywhere.
Not to abandon responsibility and start living. My own life.
Not to chuck it and spend my remaining days being a drain on the system, fate, and others' nerves.

My task at this point is try to carve out a little serenity, calm, happiness even, when there's not much left to carve from.

Getting my life back might be so grand as to overwhelm me.

Back to the old blogging board....

I had decided to let blogging go for at least the summer. One of my last posts elicited a flame from my own mother, no less. In the interest of keeping the peace, but understanding that 1) memory can be selective; and 2) I am not crazy - wait, I am, but not in that way - I have decided to let everyone believe whatever they want on that score and keep on going. I don't write my blog for her, and I write my memories, thoughts and concerns, no one else's. I have my hands full enough, frankly, with trying to survive my own life. And no one can guess what that's about....

So anyway, I am back in the blogosphere, and trying to re-establish myself once again.

This has been an interesting summer to say the least.

I am still plugging away at barista-ness at a local Starbucks, and in two days I - along with my children, and even St Timothy of the Dashed Hopes and Dreams - will have health insurance. I am pretty excited about this. I have already made an eye appointment. About 3 months ago, Tara stood on my only pair of glasses. This is a pretty serious thing, considering I am actually legally blind in my left eye, and can't see that well out my right. I've been wearing an old, bent-up pair from about 10 years ago, and the headaches are excruciating so this will be a welcome thing.

In the past month I have been very disappointed by several of the people close to me, one in particular. I have learned to trust my instincts more and that I truly can save no one in world but myself.

Without going into great tedious detail, I will speak as an Al-Anon here.
About a month ago, my husband hit what hopefully will finally be his bottom and was arrested. The charges, of course, stemmed from his alcoholism. No surprise there. I left him in jail for four days. Eventually I did bail him out, but it was with trepidation, and misgivings, and basically only because I was physically sick at that point. Without him in the home, instead of feeling relief, I could not sleep or eat. (And yes, I am still enjoying the fact that my jeans, so recently outgrown, are fitting again.) This was strange, as I thought when delivered from living with active alcoholism, I would be breathing easier. Basically all I felt was that life was hard, stressful and overall sucky no matter what.
This week he went back to court for the third time, was sentenced to 3 more days (for a total of 7, with credit for time served), and attended two AA meetings. He will be going back to jail tomorrow morning. I refuse to get happy that he attended the two meetings; I've been this road before and I know better than to hope for anything outside of myself. Hell, even hoping for myself is setting myself up for disappointment at this point.

Other than that, I have been scrambling to re-define myself career-wise. I still want to be a writer someday. Yet having time to write, or to even hear my own voice, is difficult when I am scurrying from one job to the next. It's hard to carve time out to shower and play with my kids, let alone to write anything anyone will ever want to read. I still can't shake the impulse to write, however. And I am less afraid to look deeper within my own foibles and funk-tastic mental illness/strangeness to figure out just what kind of crazed freak is staring back at me.

I want to say I am at once more frightened about the future than ever, but at the same time, not sure if I care.

The bottom line is that I can't keep going on as I have. And at some point, I may need a few hours off work (since a day is impossible) to figure out what to do about all that.

A couple days ago I found out that a person that had given me some hope in my recovery had died. So I would like to say:

So long, Julia, and thanks for all your words, and for just being there. We got what we needed from hearing your words and your story. And you were heard.

This made me happy.

This made very happy. Not sure I would disclose at a job interview, but there it is.

Sums up the day at work!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I am powerless over time and my life has become unmanageable...

Well, the title of this entry kind of says it all.

On the bright side, I am still working both jobs, and have not quit, even though there have been several days I have wondering if killing myself slowly in this fashion is really worth it. I am looking at several different things in my world, and trying to make some decisions about everything.

I am trying to decide what I need to do to take care of what must happen... A very vague way of trying to determine some priorities and changes that may need to happen. For so long my life has been in a holding pattern, and right now my decision making is based on what I need to accomplish just to make it through the next 24 hours. That is kind of a good exercise for me to do in terms of recovery, but also been very problematic in my trying to be seen as more of a professional and less of a doormat upon which to dump repugnant tasks. It appears I have a less than rudimentary filter with which to weed out that stuff.

So forgive the not writing, and too many days of silence. Between working seven days per week and no Internet access at home, I have lost the ability to check in as much as I would like. Or go to meetings. Or do lots of other things.

catching up....

It's been almost a month since my last post and not much has changed. I am still working at KIC and Starbucks. I am actually able to understand a drink call and can make most drinks now, albeit slowly. I am very lucky to have a great bunch of people to work with, and some of them are truly glorious people. As far as my original job goes, I am glad to have a part-time assistant to help with the phone, faxes and filing. This has helped me a great deal, and I may even get caught up some day.

Physically I am having alot of problems with the hypertension and the fibromyalgia. I keep having flares, not sleeping very well (even though I sleep every chance I get), and overall I feel very run down. My heels are hurting daily in an excruciating way, and so I have started back on the Nopalea and the vitamins as of this morning. I think this will make a big difference.

The weather here continues to be beautiful, even when there are thunderstorms or floods.



*** Disclaimer: I did not take any pictures of the flood, so I took these from jade1984 at The Weather Channel gallery. I'm sorry I didn't take any photos, because Mother Nature really showed us who is in control. Not us.***