one year later ….

My sister once told me that it takes about two years to settle in to a new living environment, new city, new community, new life.  That would mean I am halfway through the process.    Life is good in Cape.  At the same time, I really do miss many aspects of  my old life in my hometown.  I can’t help it.

Initially, I spent a lot of energy shutting out and shutting down the frustration and anger that comes from losing a job and an independent life.  Living with lupus for 19 years taught me to push through the process.   I know how to operate in “survival readjustment mode”,  because that’s what people with lupus do.  It wasn’t hard to transfer those skills to life on disability and unemployment.   I’m getting good at that.    Moving forward is more challenging.  I’m not sure why.  It just is.

Some elements of life seem to be in a continual state of uncertainty.  Like my health insurance.  I may or may not get state aid and if I do, it may or may not cover the infusions I need every three weeks.  I may or  may not move to Wisconsin; it depends on money and health insurance.  Stuff like that drives me crazy, so I try not to think about such things very often.  I have no control over it anyway.

Spiritually and emotionally I feel like I’ve been living in a desert.  It took me about a year to realize I’ve wound up in the desert, and I guess it will take a while to figure how to get out of it.  I have attempted to reconnect with my spiritual self through music.  Singing has always been my preferred method of praying.  I hope it works.

Some days I consider myself very fortunate.  I’ve had some amazing trips this past year with friends and family, and have visited parts of the country I’ve never seen before.  There have been a few occasions when I’ve been able to drop whatever I was doing to help someone out during a major or minor crisis.  I’ve reconnected with my inner artist and continue to design jewelry.

Obviously, I haven’t written much this year.  I was shocked to see my last post was in February.  My inner slacker has been running wild.  Then again, I’m at it again today and maybe I’ll be inspired to write on a more regular basis.

I guess I look at everything with a very cautious, tentative attitude these days.  It’s an intentional tactic, one that I haven’t tried out very often in the past.  If it seems vague and uncertain, I guess it is because it’s a reflection of how I feel.  For now, I feel I’ve reached a saturation level of physical and emotional chaos and upheaval.    I’m trying my best to stay calm and carry on.

Goodbye 2010

What will the new year bring us?  Last year was pretty busy.    In no particular order, I

1.  Bought a new car.  Good times.

2.  Lost my job.  Bad times.

3.  Moved to a new city, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

 

 

 

4.  Started a small (yet modestly successful) business designing and making jewelry.

5.  Reconnected with a great friend from high school.  Hi Maria!

6.  Traveled to North Carolina for a family birthday celebration along the Laurel River.   Sublime!

 

 

 

7.  Traveled to Wisconsin and celebrated Halloween with my son and daughter-in-law.  We also went to a rock shop, and visited the Audubon Society nature preserve where he works.

8.  Read 8 books.

9.  Accomplished a lot of virtual farming in FarmVille.  Belted cows are a very good thing.

10. Lost 38 pounds.

11.  Took a class in wire wrapping.  Used one of the rocks I bought in Wisconsin.

 

 

 

 

12.  Nursed a very sick cat back to health.  Charlie used one of his 9 lives.

13.  Made 15 trips to the hospital for immunoglobulin infusions.  Yeah St. Louis University Hospital!

14.  Photographed orchids, children, trees, animals, jewelry, and heaven knows what else.

 

 

 

15.  Applied for social security disability and was approved on the first try.

16.  Successfully avoided unhealthy exposure to the sun and UV light.

17.  Witnessed first hand the damage and devastation of a F3 tornado.  This one was on New Year’s Eve.  A 50 ft. white pine tree uprooted and crashed through my ex’s home.  Nobody was injured.

 

 

 

18.    Adjusted to life out of the fast lane of full-time employment.  That was a challenge.

19.  Celebrated my sister’s retirement.  Actually, we’re still celebrating.

20. Learned not to feel guilty about getting 8-10 hours of sleep every night.

All in all, after a rocky start and a scary ending with a tornado, 2010 wasn’t too bad.  This year I’m looking forward to a less stressful life, managing my health and living with lupus in the slow lane.    Despite everything I remain optimistic and determined to live in the present.  Stay tuned.

Talking Trash

My cell phone went missing Monday evening.  After a couple hours of fussing over “what-the-hell-will-I-do-if-I-can’t-find-my-phone” I decided it would turn up if I didn’t try so hard to look for it.  I stopped looking because I’m so very optimistic about expecting happy endings.

That didn’t work.

So I went to my office the following day, filled with absolute certainty that by the time I got home I would find it.  That didn’t happen either.  Rats!

I hate to admit being dependent on a cell phone but alas, I am.  Really.  Dependent.  My virtual universe is loaded on my iPhone.  Pictures, applications, maps, appointments … the works.  Of course I could get another cell phone if this one was truly MIA forever.  But what a hassle!

After muttering to myself when I returned home from work  (and creeping the cats out in general) I decided to try a different search method.  I started calling my phone, room by room, from my land line in the house.  Called the bedroom.  No answer.  Called the basement.  No answer.  Went to the garage and called the car.  No answer.  No ringing.  No nothing.

Finally, I went to the kitchen and called.  Nothing.  However, the stovetop fan was on because I was trying to make dinner, so it turned it off to listen.  Oh yeah, I was expecting some friends over for dinner to watch American Idol and was also rushing around cleaning up at the last minute.  I’m the queen of multi-tasking … dinner, vacuuming, table setting, and cell phone searching.

But I digress.

Finally, FINALLY, I hear a muffled “ring ring” (like the old fashioned phones) coming somewhere near (or under) the sink.  OMG!  It’s in the trash can!

The trash can that is filled with the most god-awful, gross food crap you could imagine.

I grab a new trash bag and start pulling junk out of the trash can and into the new bag.  One by one, I pulled out chicken bones, which really excited the cats.  They gathered ’round me sitting on the floor, as if they wanted to help search.  Cats are such fake-out artists. I knew they were only interested in potentially plundering some chicken parts.  There were multiple other gross things discovered in that icky bag, including some leftover cake batter, that I had to maneuver around.  It was tricky business, indeed.

And let me just say that when you are exploring the contents of a trash bag and if you happen to come upon a lot of  discarded red velvet cake batter in a hasty manner, your kitchen is poised to look like an episode of Dexter doing what he does best.

I did just that and it wasn’t pretty.  Unless you like to watch autopsies.

I was praying to the patron saint of kitchen cleanup to help me find this stupid phone and restore my kitchen to glistening cleanliness before my friends show up and find me splayed out on the floor digging in the trash, looking like I lost my mind.  Which I probably had at that point.

But to my horror, I STILL couldn’t find the phone.

Now I have 2 big trash bags half filled with crap. And no phone.

So I called my cell phone again.  This time I separated the bags so I could tell which one was ringing.  Did I mention that it is harder to locate missing cell phones in dark trash bags, as opposed to light colored trash bags?  And I’m not profiling anything here.  It’s just the plain truth.

Finally.  I find my phone, covered in butter, cake batter, indescribable fuzz, and a random chicken bone sticking out of the side of it like a fake antenna.

But Lordy, it was still ringing!

The cats left the kitchen, quite disappointed.  I hastily bagged up the second trash bag, washed the floor, cleaned up my iPhone and the case, set out the fruit plate and hummus, washed my hands, put on my pearl necklace and apron and was ready to great my company with no evidence of the insanity I just barely survived right before they knocked on my front door.

**************

Yep.  Tuesday night, nobody knew about the riotous cell phone incident.

Until they read this post, that is.

Whatever It Takes

Carry on.  Keep your wits about you.  It could be worse.  One day at a time.  Stay optimistic.

*****

Trite and banal?  Yes.  But this type of self-talk is what works for me right now.  Doing whatever it takes to stay functional in my little world is what I need to do.  Health problems.  Money problems.  Car problems.  Family problems.  Lord knows we all have them.  And my little collection of the aforementioned stuff seems to be ramping up just beyond my usual level of tolerance.

*******

I haven’t been blogging regularly.  My intention is to get back on track and write more often.  Some things (like writing) I don’t miss until I stop doing or seeing or experiencing them and then out of nowhere, I realize, “…Hey, what the hell happened to LupusRanting?  Did she vanish?  Win the lottery?  Wind up on a milk carton?  WTF? …”

For those of you who stop by regularly, thanks for stopping by regularly.

Me and my bad attitude aren’t going anywhere.  For now.  Whatever it takes to carry on.

Snow Day

We had our first big snow of the year here in River City.  Sometimes it’s best just to stay home.

You Better Not Cry

Like the song says, ” … you better not cry.”  In a perfect world, I would take my own advise.  Earlier this month I wrote about all sorts of great ways to stay sane during the holiday season.  I also said that there was no such thing as a perfect Christmas, a perfect family … blah, blah, blah.

And it makes sense.  On paper.

So, of course I was caught off guard when I had my Annual Christmas Meltdown the other day.  And it was a beauty.

Drama. Tears. Angst. Unrequited crap.

My Annual Christmas Meltdown

How does an otherwise relatively normal person lose their mind, freak out over all things related to the holidays and have the expectations of a four-year-old during the Christmas season?

You tell me.

At least this tantrum lasted a short time.  And I’m so over it now.

My inner four-year-old is still there, but I gave her some chocolate so hopefully she’ll shut up and behave.

Eating chocolate (in moderation) will take your mind off just about anything that is unpleasant or frustrating about the Christmas season.  Plus it’s a lot less expensive than therapy or SSRI’s.