Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Where bobby pins hold angel wings, it's alright

Many disparate things make a post:

  1. Still waiting to hear when we're going to Jay's second opinion consult.  We think we know the schedule, but I will only believe it when the airline tickets have been bought.
  2. I'm finding myself really looking forward to flying with Jay.  My ex and I never managed to get on a plane together in nearly 25 years of marriage.  I'm not a good flier, but Jay is, so that will help.
  3. Finding it very amusing to realize that I'm living in the shadow of a volcano.
  4. Currently working on grappling with the realization that the old tapes that play in my head are really a way of my mind trying to find ground.  This will no doubt become a full blog post at some point, once I have a better sense of what this all means from a psychological and Buddhist perspective.  I'll be curious to see what my therapist has to say today about this.
  5. I'm bummed not to be going to the Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm show in Portland tonight.  Even if nothing else were going on, it's so rare for me to stay up that late.  Still bummed ...
  6. I'm taking a class in my recovery community on veggies.  My housemate the lovely Nancy is introducing me slowly to veggies I didn't think I liked, most notably brussels sprouts.  Between her and this class, I might finally conquer the vegetable world.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

And the sun that calls through the window every morning is a doorway

Spending another weekend with my lovely housemate Nancy.  We're going out glasses shopping for me today, and strategizing what to do with my hair.  I'm currently thinking about a minor haircut, followed by a major color stripe of some variety.  We'll see what we can come up with.

I've also discovered that my bed is trashed.  It groans and creaks every time I roll over, sounding like an old woman trying to stand up from an overstuffed chair on a cold day.  Never mind doing anything more athletic than rolling over.  I can make the bed rock back and forth just with two fingers of one hand on the frame.

So a new bed is in order.

First thing is to get the headboard out of the room and into the garage with all the other furniture to be hauled away.  Then I need to go to Ikea and buy storage bins to replace the drawers that are under the current bed.  Then I can order my new bed online from Ikea, unless I decide to buy a bed from the same place Jay got his.  I know that bed is sturdy enough, so that might be the better choice.

Still unpacking boxes, slowly finding places for everything, slowly ceasing to feel like I'm living in a live-action jigsaw puzzle.

Friday, February 15, 2013

I don't know what in this world is trying to save me

It's been a while since I've posted here.  I've been busy processing the dual realities that we are no longer treating Jay with the expectation of a cure, and that Jay's social life has come back to life in the brief window between his being recovered from surgery and going back on the reduced chemo.

And I'm still processing.  And I'm still not sure what all I'm feeling.  It's all so complex.

Meeting more of his friends in Seattle brought home to me more than anything else has just what's at stake here.  Why that should be the thing out of all the things that should trigger that realization is beyond me to understand.

I'm sad and tired and yet somehow still joyful day to day, because that's how we'll live the rest of this thing, day to day.  One day can be managed, that particular size of container of life and fear and joy and pain and love can be held and coped with and handled.

But I can tell the stress is getting to me, at least a little bit.  Old nervous habits, long ago abandoned, have cropped back up.  I'm doing that thing I used to do in junior high of fiddling with my hair.  I even displaced that over to fiddling with the tassels on my therapist's couch pillows during one session.  I started laughing when I realized what I was doing, and then had to explain it.

My dreams are long and strange, and I forget the content by the time I wake up.  I can remember the emotional texture of them, but nothing more, as if my brain is trying to protect me from content I shouldn't be aware of.

But there is so much love in my life right now, and I feel so blessed for it, so onward I go.