Friday Quotable
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”
-Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray
Going Through the Motions
Going Through The Motions
Life has thrown me my fair share of curve balls lately. The most recent has been another bout of unbalanced thyroid hormones. I contracted the flu in December along with a nasty recurring sinus and lung infection that hung on until March. Then the migraines started and exhaustion creeped up on me and before I knew it I’d spent six months doing essentially nothing but going to work, coming home, and climbing into bed like I hadn’t slept a wink in a month.
Tests revealed that my hypothyroidism has once again become unbalanced and they upped my meds, but instead of starting to get better, my symptoms seem to be getting worse. I remind myself that the stronger doses will take time to work and elevate my T3 and T4 levels and it has only been five days.
My entire system is out of whack and I feel like I’ve just been playing at life for half a year…going through the motions…trying to keep it all together and look normal (whatever that is?!). I worry about my job because lack of appropriate thyroid levels turns my brain to jelly and by mid-afternoon each day my mental capacity tanks and it is only force of will that gets me through the last few hours of the work day. Actually, it’s only force of will that gets me to do anything these days. I am exhausted. Spent. Completely devoid of energy. Waking, getting clean and dressed then getting to work absolutely wears me out and that’s after 10 hours of sleep…sometimes more…
All of the things that used to bring me joy just seem like chores now. My home life is falling apart because I can’t keep up with things and the smallest task seems insurmountable. I force myself to do one household thing each work day. On Mondays I gather the garbage and take it out and it takes me all evening because I have to rest in between collecting the trash from the little cans on each floor of the house. Another night I try to wash some dishes. Cooking all but the simplest of meals is beyond me. Thank goodness feeding the cats only requires that I open a few cans and I’ve been using disposable bowls. I do feel guilty about not playing with them as much as I used to and I can tell they miss it.
Still, I managed to hang onto my positive attitude until earlier this week when another symptom of hypothyroidism came crashing down upon me…depression. Usually depression is the first symptom to appear when my thyroid is out of whack, but this time it was a straggler. I want to feel like I’m doing a good job at work. I want to plant my garden. I want to make some art. I want to do more than just work and sleep. When I’m struggling like this I want people to be able to see it as a disability (even if it is eventually managed), but instead it is often assumed that I’m just lazy…that I don’t care…that I’m taking advantage in some way. And that’s untrue. I’m sick and it often takes months to get me back to my own perception of wellness.
Until then I’ll continue to drag myself through the motions and be sad about my inability to find joy in, or even do, the things that used to make me happy. I’m just trying to hold my life together while both my work and home life seem to be falling apart.
Where Have You Been?
It has been a really rough couple of years for me and this past year, with the death of my beloved Midian, has been particularly difficult. Grief is not something that you can put a time limit on or something that you can just wish away and it can be crippling for a time. It has been for me despite how hard I’ve tried to just move on.
I’ve wanted to write about numerous things on this blog in the past year. The first being one of my favorite topics, fat travel, as I’ve taken three trips this year and written about none of them. The first trip was a Carnival cruise that I took about a month and a half before Midian died, but when I came back from the trip, my little guy was so ill that everything else got wiped from my life so that I could be with him and, in the end, be there with him in every way when it came time for him to cross the veil. And after that, there was nothing but crushing grief as I went through the motions of everyday life.
So I never wrote about the Caribbean cruise or the short camping trip in Pennsylvania or my most recent trip up the Danube River through Central Europe.
As Samhain approaches and the veil thins, I’ll place a candle in the window to light Midian’s way and maybe his spectral form will visit me again and he’ll lay his little head in my palm like he used to as I fell asleep at night.
And when the veil thickens again, I’m making myself a promise to come back to this blog and write what I wanted to write over the past year while I’ve been consumed by grief. Because, as Bubbles from The Wire said, “Ain’t no shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things.”
She Who Survives
I stumbled across this in one of my many books when I was trying to survive a difficult week/month/year, hell, a difficult life at this point. It really helped and spoke to quite a few of the things that I’ve been dealing with lately so I thought it needed to be shared.
The Limping Goddess: She-Who-Survives
by Pesha Joyce Gertler, 1983
She limps into the room
bent with the cargo of rape, battering
single-parent mothering and bureaucratic neglect
if she is fat or gay or nonwhite or Jewish
the pains multiply;
she has carried them all.
Her lotus feet have trudged this planet
for aeons; torn tennis shoes tell
how far she’s traveled. She hunches
against the winter wind, her second-hand
coat like a blanket she wraps around
her golden body. Occasionally, she flies
over buildings, lands on tree tops,
is mistaken for a fat bird.
And occasionally, she falls,
intensifying her limp. But make no mistake;
that golden skin was mined in the black earth,
her feet, though limping and calloused,
are the lotus feet of She-Who-Survives.
A broken yet shining forgotten deity
returning, and there are millions
like her, multi-colored, limping
Goddesses returning to lay down our cargo
and reclaim our own.
Beauty
If you ignore beauty,
you will soon find yourself without it;
but if you invest in beauty,
it will remain with you all the days of your life.
— Frank Lloyd Wright
Midian’s Tale
Midian in the Back Window
It is with great sadness that I tell my readers of the passing of my beloved cat Midian on February 28, 2009. He was 13 years, 7 months, and 10 days old when he became so ill that I had to have him put to sleep, on of all days, my 36th birthday. I am thankful that he was vibrant and playful up until just a month or so before his death and he only spent a couple of weeks really feeling ill as both I and his vets did whatever we could to help him to a possible recovery. Finally, it got to a point where his back legs stopped working properly, he could no longer sleep, and he was obviously in pain.
With human beings there is a whole set of rituals for those left behind that are set around saying goodbye and remembering a loved one’s life after their passing. With animals, that system doesn’t exist and if you’re like me, someone who often prefers the company of animals to people, you need a way to remember a pet’s well-lived life and focus on the joys they brought instead of the excruciating pain of their loss.
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks telling stories of Midian’s life to my friends and family and digging through old photos of our adventures together. I knew that a part of my grieving process would have to be telling the story of Midian’s life. So I offer this up to you dear readers as a memorial for my friend, provocateur, protector, and ornery one. He is now and will always be truly missed.
TechSoup Gets it Right
I was reviewing the eligibility requirements for donations of Microsoft software on the TechSoup website and came across this in those requirements.
Organizations that advocate, support, or practice discrimination based on age, ethnicity, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background are not eligible to participate in this program. Organizations must be willing and able to attest that they do not discriminate on any of these grounds in order to receive donations.
I guess I should expect that not discrimating because of size would be included in their requirements considering that TechSoup is based in San Francisco, but I was still pleasantly surprised to see it in the requirements for donations. Now if we could just get that standardized across the country. That would mean even more to cheer about. Yay for non-discrimination in the workplace.
Bah Humbug!
I hate the holidays. To anyone who knows me this will not be a surprise. I think the last time I actually enjoyed a holiday season was 1993–15 years ago–which is saying something.
I like the idea of a giving season, but what I don’t like are the societal obligations put on Americans, in particular, to spend, spend, spend until they are so deep in debt that they can’t dig out…then the credit card company raises your rate to 29.99% and you’re beyond screwed.
I like giving gifts; I just don’t like being obligated to give gifts, especially to people I don’t like or only see once a year (and there are a couple of people that fall into those categories). I’d much rather give donations to causes close to my heart or to people in geniune need than spend that money on gift cards and video games.
This year, the Maryland Food Bank is getting a monetary donation from me. Food banks can do a lot more with your money than they can with your canned goods. They can buy a lot more food with your cash than you can. They use their connections to get that same can of food for $.19 instead of the $.75 you might pay in the grocery store. If I didn’t have to buy/make so many presents this year, the food bank would be getting much more. I hate that I am forced to spend those much-needed funds on consumerist gifts, especially this year when there are so many in need.
Another reason that I’m such a Scrooge is the glut of time that all of these holiday endeavours eat out of my daily life. There is no ‘me’ time during the holidays and I am someone who desperately needs ‘me’ time to maintain my sanity.
I am forced to make a lot of my gifts either through baking or crafting because I am not a rich person and my gift-giving list seems to get longer every year (it’s a whole page long now). And while I am a very artsy/craftsy person and I tend to enjoy making things, there is something about the rush that takes all of the joy out of creating something to give. And, to be completely honest, I’m sick of coming up with new ideas. I’ve given homemade candles, soaps, herbal bath sachets (where I actually grew the herbs the summer prior), jewelry, baskets, herbal oils and vinegars, bath salts, iron-on t-shirt decals with rude sayings (for the nephew for several years running), black bottoms, challah, herb and cheese rolls, shortbread, brioche, truffles, and cookies of all types.
These gifts are usually well received, but by the time I’ve given them, I’m so exhausted that I don’t really get to enjoy the recipients’ appreciation of them.
Another of the reasons I don’t like the holidays was well put by another holiday-hating blogger that I read regularly so I’ll quote intellectualbabe on this one as she said it so well:
Please refrain from telling me I should be grateful. I’ve discussed this before, but let me bring it up one more time since the “grateful” tends to go hand-in-hand with the whole “How can you hate Chriiiiiiiiistmissssssssss???”. For everything that I do have (friends, roof over head, employment, blah blah blah), there is always going to be a metaphorical hole in my alleged heart that is not going to be filled by friends, roof over head, employment, hobbies, blah blah blah. Platonic love, such as it is, will never satisfy me. Being the wacky asexual sidekick/third wheel doesn’t make me turn cartwheels of glee. I don’t “need” a partner/relationship. I want one. But because of whatever (anonymous commenters like to point out that I’m “angry” and that’s why I’m kryptonite to the male population of the universe), it doesn’t appear to be in the cards. […] I understand that I am not 99.99999 percent of the universe’s bag. I get that. But don’t tell me that I shouldn’t have moments of sadness, that I shouldn’t be a touch resentful, and I shouldn’t be ANGRY that I ain’t feeling too great about being alone. Mind you, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I am able to function, entertain myself, travel alone and I won’t be sitting in the house every weekend and I will make do until I kick off. But I will rage about it and I will raise hell about it until the day I fucking die, and if that’s problematic for you? Tough titty says the kitty. If nothing else, feel free to use me as your own lesson in gratitude. (However, I do charge for the privilege. I have PayPal.)
Amen to that!
Five for Friday
Everyone has bad days. Sometimes music can help to pull me out of a bad body image funk or any kind of funk for that matter.
So here are five songs that help me fight the funk.
1. Women’s Bodies by Rebecca Riots–Check out the Rebecca Riots website for a listen. I prefer the live version just because I love the energy of the performance.
2. Mouthwash by Kate Nash
3. Three Little Birds by Bob Marly and the Wailers–just ’cause it always makes me smile
Weightless One 