Tomorrow is Christmas. Probably our last Christmas with Chris for a long time. He goes to Japan next month, and will be gone...indefinitely. I want to make it festive. I really really do, but I am so tired and sore that it seems a little bit impossible. IBS sucks. Have I mentioned this? I'm having some days of improvement, and I've started on a probiotic and herbal supplement that are helping my symptoms. I'm finding, however, that everything I'm used to eating sets me off. This also sucks. Dairy, wheat, fatty foods, raw veggies...and it's a good thing I have been tending vegetarian already, because the idea of meat just makes me queasy. What am I going to do? Christmas Eve morning and I'm still asking myself this. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go outside and climb on a bus, and go to the market. I'll see if they have ham, and if they don't, I'll just buy lots of potatoes, and make scalloped potatoes. Kelly said that's the only food he really wants for Christmas, so I can do that. I wonder if it would work with coconut milk?

I'm angry and I'm frustrated and I"m SO tired of being sick. But enough! I'm not fixing those things by sitting here crying over them. I'll do what I can. What I can't do, I'll let go. I'm afraid that what I can do won't be enough, but it's only ever me that has these huge expectations anyhow. So screw it. I'm off to find out what I CAN do.

I went for a beautiful hike today. I hike with the Community Recreational Initiatives Society (CRIS for short). There was a nippy little breeze, but in among the trees it was just perfect. It was good to be out, to connect to the world of snow and not have it be an inconvenience, or something I had to work around. It was just part of the day, and it was perfect for snowballs, too. I'm glad I went, but I'm kind of shocked at how tired I was afterwards. We were out for a couple hours; not on terribly challenging trails, but by the time we were done all I wanted was a nap. I feel so convalescent, which isn't unreasonable, I suppose. I've only been out of the hospital for a week or so. I'm finding it difficult to balance the needs of my IBS with those of my diabetes, but I'm going to be seeing a dietitian to help with that. Tonight it's just a little hard to be sick again, still, whatever. I'm trying to remember that even sick I do things that are good.

One of the things I've learned from CRIS is that I'm much more interested in finding out what I can do than in enumerating the things I can't. So, apparently I can hike for 2 hours in the snow, as long as I plan a nap. Unfortunately, I have set myself a whole list of things I 'should' be doing, regardless of how I feel. This is unproductive, but I seem to do it pretty regularly anyway. My house feels grubby, and I still don't quite feel up to the task of getting it not-grubby. Is it okay for me to be a little afraid of how tired I am? I guess it'll have to be. I'm torn, you see, between feeling crappy and knowing that I tend to stagnate in the winter. I know I sometimes don't do stuff because my mood is down, and that leads to more not doing, which leads into the Pit of Despair. Push, don't push...I keep waiting for this to get simpler.

The simplest fact of my life is that it's mine, I guess. I'll just have to do what I can.

Today I am forty-two. It's funny. I always felt like I was so much older than my age, and now I feel so much younger than it. Perhaps it's only that I've finally got enough years to fit all the events comfortably. I don't know, but I feel joyful today. I feel victorious. My insides still ache some, and I know it's going to take a while for that to calm (assuming it ever does). But I feel like I've regained my optimism, that ridiculous spark of belief that has carried me so far. I want to believe that things will work out, and so, eventually I do. One good thing I can see out of all the tests at the hospital is that apart from the IBS and all my other existing health concerns, I'm absurdly healthy. I'm still epileptic, and I'm still diabetic, but they're both well controlled. The doctor told me that my results were "pristine" and that he wished his were as good. While it wasn't comforting in the middle of my pain, I find it comforting now. Ever since the stroke, and my sister's death a few years after that, I've had this terrible feeling that I was dying. That something was very wrong, and we just didn't know. It has been more than just a feeling, actually, it has been a rock-solid belief that creeps up from time to time, usually when I'm stressed. So while I'm doing as much dying day-to-day as anyone else, I can be sure I'm doing as much living, too. Maybe more. I'm aiming for more, that's for sure.

So thank you, Universe, for another year. Thank you for hope, and for conviction. Thank you for the people I love, the people that love me, and thank you for everyone else. Thank you for my peace, thank you for my healing, and thank you for giving me the lessons you have.

Oh my. What a few months this has been. I've been diagnosed with IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I had a stomach flu, and first it just didn't get better, then slowly got much, much worse. I ended up in Emergency a couple of times, on doctor's orders that if it got worse, I was to go back. The final time, they admitted me. All I knew was that something was writing lines of fire across my insides, and I really wanted it to stop. They tested my blood, cleaned out my insides to scope me, then filled me with barium for x-rays. I'm not going to go in any greater detail, except to say that this has been one of the most invasive responses to illness that I've ever had. It's left me feeling a little vulnerable, as has the pain. I ate almost normally yesterday for the first time in over a month, and so ended up in terrible pain in the middle of the night. I have medication, but now I need to learn to cope with the condition. IBS is essentially a diagnosis of  'yes it hurts, but we don't know why'. They ruled out all sorts of illnesses, and what it comes down to is managing my stress, eating well, and generally taking care of myself.

I wanted desperately to ask the universe 'why me'. I really, really did. But the lesson is too implicit for me to ignore. I'm supposed to learn how to take care of myself better. Or perhaps to remember skills I've forgotten to use. I know what helps me manage my stress, and I know I've not been managing it well. I've not been writing, and perhaps that emotional block was bound to show up in the physical. How could it possibly have been described better than by the gut of me, the core of me; a system that has the most nerve-endings of anywhere in my body?

So here I am, at the keyboard, reaching in to my worded soul, reaching out to a blank page. It feels like I am poised on the brink of something life-altering. Something beyond physical wellness, perhaps. How peculiar.

I have a big neon orange sticky on my screen that says 'Write first' and I really, really, REALLY want to ignore it. Could I have a different sticky, please? A different epiphany, perhaps?

Being angry is still a crappy excuse not to write. Writing makes me happy. It settles me more comfortably into my own skin. I think I'm afraid, too. I'm afraid that I don't know how to finish my other stories. I've forgotten the comfort of a writing schedule; forgotten it physically, as much as emotionally. I remember that it used to make my days feel complete, even if that was all I did.

So enough excuses. I'm off to write. Wish me luck, would you?

Fighting my own nature

I am ridiculous. I love to write. I'm a writer by nature. I babble and scribble and yet, somehow, I'm refusing my own need to write regularly. I slip into my chair, disappear into WoW for a few hours. Clean house, read...anything except that one thing I need so badly to do. What am I afraid of? Clearly I'm afraid of something. I know that the best way to write a book is to sit on my butt and type words.

Part of what bothers me, I think, is how it has gone with my first book. I published through a small, new, local publishing firm, and I have to say that it feels an awful lot like vanity press. If I want to have a book signing, I am going to have to purchase authors' copies of the book. I am very short on fundage for that sort of purchase, and I resent it. Oh, I see. Maybe I'm less afraid than I am angry. Writing that book was work, both mental and spiritual. I touched on important themes in my own life, on the ideas that drive and bind me. While I've had excellent responses for the most part, I'm angry that the job didn't get easier once the book was done.

Bugger.

Being angry is a pretty flimsy excuse for not moving on. I've been angry about a lot of stuff over the course of my life, and I expect that to continue. Have I really come no further than this?

I want to know what happens next to my characters. I have a sequel coming for 'Spoken' and I have 20,000 words or so of a teen novel called 'Elvish has left the building', and I have a self-help book close to done...anger is not a sufficient excuse to stop working. I've been reading voraciously, mostly to avoid putting my own stories to paper.

Next month is the national-novel-writing event, and I will take part. I wrote a very difficult short story that I'd like to expand into novel form. I think I'll give that a shot.

So tomorrow, I will make coffee, and open Word before I open Wow. I have to let this anger go. It's stifling and important part of who I am. I have to accept that what happens with my book will, regardless of whether or not I let myself be angry about it.

I also need to talk to my agent about my anger, and I'm worried about that. I love her as a person, and I don't know how well we can separate our friendship from our business relationship. I definitely want to let the anger go before I have that discussion. I need to be clear about needs and wants and expectations, and I can't do that if I let anger splash all over them first.

In the meantime, I'm putting a sticky note on my screen that says 'Writing first'. I'll keep you appraised.

I auditioned for Canada's Got Talent, and I'm waiting to hear whether I made it to the judges audition. E-mails are supposed to be going out by the fifteenth, and I'm starting to worry. Worrying is counter-productive, I know, but I start my whole run of 'what if' questions. What if I make it. What if I don't. What if I'm not as good as I hope I am. Bleah. My monkey-mind is in full gear, and pelting me with rotting bananas. There's no point in trying to answer the questions, it's all theoretical, and there's nothing I can do now to change the outcome in any case. Time to stop. Time to breathe and be grateful for the moment, and to live in it fully.

Okay, so deep breath. Today I'm going to make pumpkin pie, and then I'm going over to my friend Cheryl's place for dinner. I'm grateful for my friends, grateful for my darling Kelly, who will be there too. I'm especially grateful for pumpkin pie. With whipped cream. Oh yes, and other food. I'm sure there will be some other food, too. It's just that pumpkin pie is an especial favourite. I've still got some apples from my Mata's tree, and they need to be used up, so I'll probably make apple pie, too. I might even share.

It's so easy to forget what I know about peace and living in the now. Does everyone have to keep learning the same lessons, or am I just especially special? In some ways I have an advantage. I forget stuff. It's a brain injury thing. I get to see movies for the first time twice or even three times, and even then I may get another first time in six months or a year. I'm never sure what will stick or what will disappear. Maybe that's why I worry about the future so obsessively. I want some control over my moments, some assurance that I will be permitted to keep them. There's a lot of my past that I'm really okay with losing, though it is a strange sort of way to live, here on an island of 'now' attached only tenuously to 'then'. I think it's that illusion of connection that draws me into thinking about the future. A future that hasn't happened yet is something I can remember perfectly well, in my imaginings.

I don't want to lose 'now' in favour of that illusion. I want to make pie and have dinner, and not worry about what's in my e-mail or not. Things will work out as they do, right? They always have before, somehow or another. Whatever's next will be next whether I tie myself in knots over it or not. Deep breath again. Going to make pie.

So I watched 'Dorian Gray' last night. It was a good enough movie, but a horrible depiction of corrupted innocence, and there was a lot of sexual violence and degradation. Long story short, it gave me nightmares. I'm still shaking off the lingering discomfort, and avoiding bed. Yay for passionflower. I take it in tincture form when I get serious anxiety like this, and it works better than ativan ever did.

So the first thought I have is that normal people must not have nights like this. How nice it might be to be normal. The thought that follows is...well, I'd rather be me, actually. If this is part of the price for all the other things I am, I guess I'll pay it. I still struggle with a sort of blurry picture of 'should-be'. I'm never totally sure what I should-be, but I have a lingering certainty that I'm not it.

Screw should-be. Should-be is a lie, and a cruelty to myself. I can only be as I am, from day to day. Lots of days are better than today was, I know I'm more emotional than usual because I'm tired, and I know it will pass. I don't like how my left side feels when I'm overtired, I get a tingly sort of numbness on my left arm and up the side of my throat. It feels almost like pressure, and it winds my anxiety even tighter.

I wonder how recovered I'll ever be from that childhood of mine. It was a long time ago now, nearly thirty years. I've come a long way, but sometimes it still jumps up and snags me, drags me down and back. When it does, I fall back on my most basic of tools. I breathe, and I say 'I let this go'. It's part prayer, part assertion, part demand. I say it until it's true. When the next thing comes, I'll let that go, too.

Welcome to my blog. I use Facebook a lot, but I've almost always got more to say than will fit in 400 characters. I'm a stroke survivor, and I seem to end up writing about that, and about life with a brain injury. Writing helps me sort my thoughts, so I can sift out the important ones. I write poetry and I published my first novel last year. I've fallen out of the habit of writing regularly, and I hope to re-insert the habit into my life, starting here.