This week I've had a serious rebound. Despite all the flu talk, I was thinking to myself last night how great it was to feel genuinely well and strong again. My usual aches and stiffness from working out are back, but I can't say I mind. To me it's a sign that things are changing.
Today though, I felt splintered. I didn't eat enough, certainly not enough protein. I got up too late, was too rushed running an errand first thing, and it broke my stride for the rest of the day.
The Marine has been working on our basement for a month and a half. He is exhausted and we really haven't been able to do much together with weekends being spent in and on the house. It will all be worth it in the end, but I miss what used to be our normal life.
But in some ways I don't. That old, soggy basement was much like the other parts of my past that I want no part of, a past where I was too tired and too sad most days. Now I am much more in the moment, instead of feeling like the only house in the neighbourhood that still has Christmas lights up in July. Part of me is terrified at the prospect of change, real change. I think that's the discomfort I'm feeling today, why I feel frantic and leaden at the same time.
But my discomfort is outweighed by my curiosity. I don't know where I'll be this time next year. Despite that, the thought of it makes me smile.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Working It Out
Given my illness last week, getting back into the swing of work outs this week has been tough. I'm struggling. I admit it.
If there was one consolation to being sick it was this: last week was the first time in ages I woke up and wasn't sore anywhere. Every workout gives me progress and strength, but it also reasserts the fact that I am still galactically out of shape. I just keep my focus on the longer term. It's taken a decade of depression and inactivity to get to where I am now. I'm not going to remedy that fact in two weeks.
Still, my ego's a little bruised when I'm doing arm pulls and 10 pounds is killing me. KILLING. ME.
I have to admit I've been a bit whiny this week too. Monday I was just so tired. I didn't look much better today. And even though he doesn't let me off the hook, I've never had a good poker face. I think my trainer realized today that I'm having a bad week. I committed to myself that I wouldn't whinge, but even I balked when he gave me the ten pound medicine ball to do squats with.
I basically said to get me the six pounder, cause there was no way. I'm stopping when I need to as well, but I finish all my reps.
My form was terrible with an exercise on Monday, but I said well, my form may not be good, but you will always get the best I have to give that day. My trainer seemed satisfied with that.
I'm having to actively work to not feel despondent even though my stride's been broken temporarily. Trying to get in shape when you've never really been there is tough, I won't lie. But what are my options? Getting older, fatter and weaker? I don't think so. I am making this change happen. I walked out today with the back of my arms and shoulder blades burning and pulsing.
It felt uncomfortable. It felt good too.
If there was one consolation to being sick it was this: last week was the first time in ages I woke up and wasn't sore anywhere. Every workout gives me progress and strength, but it also reasserts the fact that I am still galactically out of shape. I just keep my focus on the longer term. It's taken a decade of depression and inactivity to get to where I am now. I'm not going to remedy that fact in two weeks.
Still, my ego's a little bruised when I'm doing arm pulls and 10 pounds is killing me. KILLING. ME.
I have to admit I've been a bit whiny this week too. Monday I was just so tired. I didn't look much better today. And even though he doesn't let me off the hook, I've never had a good poker face. I think my trainer realized today that I'm having a bad week. I committed to myself that I wouldn't whinge, but even I balked when he gave me the ten pound medicine ball to do squats with.
I basically said to get me the six pounder, cause there was no way. I'm stopping when I need to as well, but I finish all my reps.
My form was terrible with an exercise on Monday, but I said well, my form may not be good, but you will always get the best I have to give that day. My trainer seemed satisfied with that.
I'm having to actively work to not feel despondent even though my stride's been broken temporarily. Trying to get in shape when you've never really been there is tough, I won't lie. But what are my options? Getting older, fatter and weaker? I don't think so. I am making this change happen. I walked out today with the back of my arms and shoulder blades burning and pulsing.
It felt uncomfortable. It felt good too.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Breakage and Repair
"Walking down the Mercer Street
Been a long hot summer
Rain like daggers
Coming down on me"
~ Road to Somewhere, Goldfrapp
Last week I was the sickest I've been in years. I had hit my usual cycle of working out and getting sick. This time was different though. This time, the doctor I saw wrote me off work for the week. I had a virus, not an infection, and there was nothing for it but to keep drinking lots of fluids and getting plenty of rest.
Rest.
What a foreign term that has seemed for so long. I seem to always be occupied or pre-occupied with something, anxiety right behind me like the exhaust from a tail pipe. It seems impossible for me to slow myself down inside even when there is nothing to do. And yet this week I did nothing but rest and my body took things from there. Six boxes of tissues later, my head and chest are clear of what was, suffice it to say, a very nasty infection indeed.
I got my first bad sinus infection in 1994, the last time I was in Scotland. I was laid up for two weeks and it's as sick as I ever want to be in my life. Physically, I've never been quite the same since that infection and it has reasserted itself every time I have tried to push myself, be it working out, extra curricular activity or a busy workload. Eventually I got things to a point where working out always seemed to be the trigger, but the only one.
Part of me thought that I'd dodged it. I've been doing very well this time around but by Wednesday it was clear that I wasn't going back to work anytime soon. I needed to stop, in every way, and just not think or do anything. I was at the point of sickness, where you quite simply don't care how busy things are at the office or what chores need to be done. All that matters is sleep.
This past summer has taken a toll on many fronts. I needed to acknowledge that for what it was and as a result, I think I've finally defeated whatever it was that got its claws into me 15 years ago. I have hacked and coughed, sniffled and sneezed, cried and shook, without apology. My heart is broken and I can't put it back together unless I acknowledge its in pieces in the first place.
The mornings are quiet now without Shuggy's ritual "mep!" and I cry. Without reading through them, I grabbed a bunch of cards that were on our living room unit because I didn't want to encounter my grandmother's last birthday card to me. As it was, it was a placekeeper in a book that I picked up again yesterday morning and I cried reading its words. It's funny how at some point you expect your parents to start treating you like an adult, but your grandparents can fearlessly and forever buy you cards suitable for a 12 year old and not offend you in the slightest. Never again, will I be a little girl to anyone, the way I was to my grandparents.
I have thought of the Maritimer, re-read his letters and have cried. I've mulled over what I know about his life out east, finally processing all the feelings I cut off and shoved back down inside myself 11 years ago. That pattern of behavior has done as much as anything to make me ill. For a while, it was all I could do not besiege the people I found with relentless emails. People are where they are with this situation, and that's not my neck of the woods for damn sure. I wanted to hop on a plane, find them and shake every last detail about the Maritimer out of them. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you saw. Everything, no matter how trivial, tell me all of it. Show me absolution for my self-imposed blame.
For that's what a lot of this grief has been about: the coulda, woulda, shouldas, the siren call of my own perfectionism inviting me to once again, crash myself upon its rocks.
And then yesterday, some grace.
The book I picked up, the one with my grandmother's birthday card in it is by Elizabeth Lesser. It's called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. Ironically, I bought this book on a whim late spring before any of the events of late had happened. I had seen the author on Oprah and she struck me as a pragmatic sort, about as flaky as toffee. I could not have a better book to be reading right now. There is an incredible chapter about September 11th. I won't spoil it for you here, but this is the part that hit me full on:
"Driving home in the warm September night, I found my thoughts returning to the people on the airplanes, and to that moment when they realized they were speeding through space toward their death. I let my grip on life loosen, until I was with those people, sharing the awe, finally understanding the secret - the same secret we will all know when death is just a breath away: In the end, what will matter is how much we loved - our children, our mates, our families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place. What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do."
In its extract, the above may strike you as maudlin. Don't make that mistake. I highly encourage you to get the book and absorb this in the context of the whole chapter.
What I realized after reading the above, is that as much as I can beat myself up regarding my time with the Maritimer and wish I had done some things differently, I also loved him with everything I had and as best I could during our time together. He did likewise. Nothing that has happened changes that. I had forgotten this central fact, omitted it entirely from my remembrance of him, and us.
It was a good reminder to recommit myself to the present, to be thankful and to value what I have now. For though I may feel much has been taken away, I also feel much is to be given in the time ahead of me. Though paths may now be closed to me, new ones are opening up.
This is the price I pay for making the journey to reclaim those parts of my soul I feel are still lost to me. I must show up and be willing to be see things through, to be uncomfortable. I think that's what a lot of the past week has been about. As much as I needed to heal physically, my heart needed to heal too.
Been a long hot summer
Rain like daggers
Coming down on me"
~ Road to Somewhere, Goldfrapp
Last week I was the sickest I've been in years. I had hit my usual cycle of working out and getting sick. This time was different though. This time, the doctor I saw wrote me off work for the week. I had a virus, not an infection, and there was nothing for it but to keep drinking lots of fluids and getting plenty of rest.
Rest.
What a foreign term that has seemed for so long. I seem to always be occupied or pre-occupied with something, anxiety right behind me like the exhaust from a tail pipe. It seems impossible for me to slow myself down inside even when there is nothing to do. And yet this week I did nothing but rest and my body took things from there. Six boxes of tissues later, my head and chest are clear of what was, suffice it to say, a very nasty infection indeed.
I got my first bad sinus infection in 1994, the last time I was in Scotland. I was laid up for two weeks and it's as sick as I ever want to be in my life. Physically, I've never been quite the same since that infection and it has reasserted itself every time I have tried to push myself, be it working out, extra curricular activity or a busy workload. Eventually I got things to a point where working out always seemed to be the trigger, but the only one.
Part of me thought that I'd dodged it. I've been doing very well this time around but by Wednesday it was clear that I wasn't going back to work anytime soon. I needed to stop, in every way, and just not think or do anything. I was at the point of sickness, where you quite simply don't care how busy things are at the office or what chores need to be done. All that matters is sleep.
This past summer has taken a toll on many fronts. I needed to acknowledge that for what it was and as a result, I think I've finally defeated whatever it was that got its claws into me 15 years ago. I have hacked and coughed, sniffled and sneezed, cried and shook, without apology. My heart is broken and I can't put it back together unless I acknowledge its in pieces in the first place.
The mornings are quiet now without Shuggy's ritual "mep!" and I cry. Without reading through them, I grabbed a bunch of cards that were on our living room unit because I didn't want to encounter my grandmother's last birthday card to me. As it was, it was a placekeeper in a book that I picked up again yesterday morning and I cried reading its words. It's funny how at some point you expect your parents to start treating you like an adult, but your grandparents can fearlessly and forever buy you cards suitable for a 12 year old and not offend you in the slightest. Never again, will I be a little girl to anyone, the way I was to my grandparents.
I have thought of the Maritimer, re-read his letters and have cried. I've mulled over what I know about his life out east, finally processing all the feelings I cut off and shoved back down inside myself 11 years ago. That pattern of behavior has done as much as anything to make me ill. For a while, it was all I could do not besiege the people I found with relentless emails. People are where they are with this situation, and that's not my neck of the woods for damn sure. I wanted to hop on a plane, find them and shake every last detail about the Maritimer out of them. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you saw. Everything, no matter how trivial, tell me all of it. Show me absolution for my self-imposed blame.
For that's what a lot of this grief has been about: the coulda, woulda, shouldas, the siren call of my own perfectionism inviting me to once again, crash myself upon its rocks.
And then yesterday, some grace.
The book I picked up, the one with my grandmother's birthday card in it is by Elizabeth Lesser. It's called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. Ironically, I bought this book on a whim late spring before any of the events of late had happened. I had seen the author on Oprah and she struck me as a pragmatic sort, about as flaky as toffee. I could not have a better book to be reading right now. There is an incredible chapter about September 11th. I won't spoil it for you here, but this is the part that hit me full on:
"Driving home in the warm September night, I found my thoughts returning to the people on the airplanes, and to that moment when they realized they were speeding through space toward their death. I let my grip on life loosen, until I was with those people, sharing the awe, finally understanding the secret - the same secret we will all know when death is just a breath away: In the end, what will matter is how much we loved - our children, our mates, our families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place. What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do."
In its extract, the above may strike you as maudlin. Don't make that mistake. I highly encourage you to get the book and absorb this in the context of the whole chapter.
What I realized after reading the above, is that as much as I can beat myself up regarding my time with the Maritimer and wish I had done some things differently, I also loved him with everything I had and as best I could during our time together. He did likewise. Nothing that has happened changes that. I had forgotten this central fact, omitted it entirely from my remembrance of him, and us.
It was a good reminder to recommit myself to the present, to be thankful and to value what I have now. For though I may feel much has been taken away, I also feel much is to be given in the time ahead of me. Though paths may now be closed to me, new ones are opening up.
This is the price I pay for making the journey to reclaim those parts of my soul I feel are still lost to me. I must show up and be willing to be see things through, to be uncomfortable. I think that's what a lot of the past week has been about. As much as I needed to heal physically, my heart needed to heal too.
Monday, September 14, 2009
R.I.P. Little Shuggy
My oldest cat Shuggy died today from kidney failure. I was there at the end and able to transition him out of this life and end his suffering humanely at the vet clinic of which he was a favourite client. He was wonderful.
I'll write here at some point in the future. I'm taking a day of work tomorrow to retreat a bit. I've had a lot of loss to contend with lately, and I need to ride out the numbness I feel.
I'll write here at some point in the future. I'm taking a day of work tomorrow to retreat a bit. I've had a lot of loss to contend with lately, and I need to ride out the numbness I feel.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Jeannie
"You are the music, while the music lasts." T.S. Eliot
It's ironic to me that one of the things I will miss most about my grandmother, is something peripheral to her as a human being. Her apartment had a north view over a park with a white church steeple that peaked up from the middle. In the midst of the fall colours, it was a visual oasis in what is often a soulless landscape in the city's extreme east end. Bordered by the confines of my grandmother's balcony window, you could be overlooking a small Virginia town for all you knew. For years, she had updates for my father and I about the family of foxes that lived there.
I got the call on Thursday morning. My grandmother had passed away in the early hours in hospital. There was a nurse there when it happened, which I was glad of, because I know my grandmother feared dying alone. I'm sure being alone and sick was hard enough and I always felt for her in this regard. I was glad she had the support network of friends, former co-workers and family that she did and that her immense suffering is over.
My relationship with my grandmother was complicated. There were familial and personal dynamics in place that we inherited, but we made the best of things which I am glad of. I've often remarked that it was quite something to have a grandparent still alive at my age, and in a similar vein, it's amazing to have said goodbye to my last grandparent at age 38.
In ways she could not have known, she inspired me. She was smart, very smart, and was still sharp as a tack at 88 years of age. I think often of the story she told me about her school principal begging her parents not to take her out of school. I'm still in awe of this happening in mid-1930's Scotland, when the societal take on education was that it was something you didn't waste on girls.
I'll always remember how much she wanted to be a nurse. She would have been a damn good one too.
I marveled at her knitting ability. My dad spoke often of how she'd knit in front of the television, her eyes never looking down at what she was doing and sweaters magically appearing over the course of a few days. He wore outfits for years as a child that she made all by hand. I still have the scarf she started for me and I'm going to finish it. I remember getting hand knit sweaters for Christmas. One year, she gave me one with a lovely brooch. It was a silver thistle with a topaz centre. It had belonged to my great-grandmother. I've never been able to find it again and I miss it acutely now.
I remember her taking me to what was then called the O'Keefe Centre to see Sugarbabies with, wait for it, Mickey Rooney and Anne Miller. Unbelievable. It was a fantastic show and a fantastic birthday present.
I remember her stories of the Clydebank Blitz during the war. I recall a story she told me about telling off another tenant in her building who had said that the Iraqees should "have the hell bombed out them." She asked them if they actually knew what they were talking about, because she had been bombed, and would never wish it on anybody.
I think about how she lost a child, twice, one as infant and one as an adult, just days before she lost her husband too.
She immigrated to Canada in her 50's, an amazing thing to do at that age I think.
I still have a silver locket she gave me for Christmas when I was twelve. I remember her saying at the time "Well you're twelve now. You're getting to that age." I felt so grown up, getting a piece of jewellery as a gift instead of a toy.
I feel as if I am fumbling for words here and not doing my grandmother justice. I am just overwhelmed with loss to the point of numbness. I am shellshocked with events of late.
Hell, my sister's dog of 14 years died two weeks ago too.
I once read a quote that said "An old person dying, is like a library burning down." How accurate a statement that is. In the end, our accumulation of experience and memory is left in the dust of our bones. What is it all for?
I don't know. All I can do is continue to carry people in my heart. All I can do is to enjoy life as much as I can and make the most of it, fundamentally uncertain, yet hopeful, that there is something beyond our last breath.
I have a great luxury my grandmother and other women of her generation didn't: I can do anything I want. I'm devoting some serious thought over the next while as to what that really is and I know if she can see me, my Granny will be cheering me on.
It's ironic to me that one of the things I will miss most about my grandmother, is something peripheral to her as a human being. Her apartment had a north view over a park with a white church steeple that peaked up from the middle. In the midst of the fall colours, it was a visual oasis in what is often a soulless landscape in the city's extreme east end. Bordered by the confines of my grandmother's balcony window, you could be overlooking a small Virginia town for all you knew. For years, she had updates for my father and I about the family of foxes that lived there.
I got the call on Thursday morning. My grandmother had passed away in the early hours in hospital. There was a nurse there when it happened, which I was glad of, because I know my grandmother feared dying alone. I'm sure being alone and sick was hard enough and I always felt for her in this regard. I was glad she had the support network of friends, former co-workers and family that she did and that her immense suffering is over.
My relationship with my grandmother was complicated. There were familial and personal dynamics in place that we inherited, but we made the best of things which I am glad of. I've often remarked that it was quite something to have a grandparent still alive at my age, and in a similar vein, it's amazing to have said goodbye to my last grandparent at age 38.
In ways she could not have known, she inspired me. She was smart, very smart, and was still sharp as a tack at 88 years of age. I think often of the story she told me about her school principal begging her parents not to take her out of school. I'm still in awe of this happening in mid-1930's Scotland, when the societal take on education was that it was something you didn't waste on girls.
I'll always remember how much she wanted to be a nurse. She would have been a damn good one too.
I marveled at her knitting ability. My dad spoke often of how she'd knit in front of the television, her eyes never looking down at what she was doing and sweaters magically appearing over the course of a few days. He wore outfits for years as a child that she made all by hand. I still have the scarf she started for me and I'm going to finish it. I remember getting hand knit sweaters for Christmas. One year, she gave me one with a lovely brooch. It was a silver thistle with a topaz centre. It had belonged to my great-grandmother. I've never been able to find it again and I miss it acutely now.
I remember her taking me to what was then called the O'Keefe Centre to see Sugarbabies with, wait for it, Mickey Rooney and Anne Miller. Unbelievable. It was a fantastic show and a fantastic birthday present.
I remember her stories of the Clydebank Blitz during the war. I recall a story she told me about telling off another tenant in her building who had said that the Iraqees should "have the hell bombed out them." She asked them if they actually knew what they were talking about, because she had been bombed, and would never wish it on anybody.
I think about how she lost a child, twice, one as infant and one as an adult, just days before she lost her husband too.
She immigrated to Canada in her 50's, an amazing thing to do at that age I think.
I still have a silver locket she gave me for Christmas when I was twelve. I remember her saying at the time "Well you're twelve now. You're getting to that age." I felt so grown up, getting a piece of jewellery as a gift instead of a toy.
I feel as if I am fumbling for words here and not doing my grandmother justice. I am just overwhelmed with loss to the point of numbness. I am shellshocked with events of late.
Hell, my sister's dog of 14 years died two weeks ago too.
I once read a quote that said "An old person dying, is like a library burning down." How accurate a statement that is. In the end, our accumulation of experience and memory is left in the dust of our bones. What is it all for?
I don't know. All I can do is continue to carry people in my heart. All I can do is to enjoy life as much as I can and make the most of it, fundamentally uncertain, yet hopeful, that there is something beyond our last breath.
I have a great luxury my grandmother and other women of her generation didn't: I can do anything I want. I'm devoting some serious thought over the next while as to what that really is and I know if she can see me, my Granny will be cheering me on.
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