Change of life/attitude/maybe clothes style....

Where shall I begin this little trip down memory road concerning my thyroid?
Well it started innocently enough with an appointment with a dermatologist due to some skin issues on my face and in my hair. I was given some meds, some advice and told to return if the problems didn't clear up.
Well I returned and as the good doctor looked at me she stated, 'do you know your thyroid is enlarged'? It was news to me. Frankly I never thought about my thyroid but because of that singular statement I found myself on the roller coaster of appointments. From the dermatologist to my own PA. Blood tests and an ultra sound. Blood tests came out find but the ultra sound did not. Seems there were nodules on both sides of my sweet thyroid. The right side larger and impeding my airway enough to make me cough.
This information sent me over the Keene to a specialist and the next thing I knew I was having a partial thyroidectomy, the theory being, my thyroid functioned, so the doctor did not want to take it all out, just half (the right half), in hopes that what was left would take over the job completely. Two weeks after the operation and after more blood letting the conclusion was the surgery was a success but the patient died. In other words, my thyroid was not working any longer. So I started on a med for that.
Months passed and slowly my energy level started to improved. More good days then bad but my weight started inching up. I went to one dietician a couple of times and she saw nothing really wrong with my eating habits although I could practice more portion control, oh duh.
I dropped her like a hot potato and started looking around at other options. I will state here I am not a touchy feely person. I hugs those in my family and that I know excessively well and I shake hands with everybody else. I don't even think about air kisses. So in looking into alternative medical treatment I first and foremost needed to find people that would respect this idiosyncrasy about me.
I tried a return visit to a place I had gone to about 10 years ago. The practitioners were young, new and huggers back then. Scared me right off. But I figure time had past, they and I had grown older maybe we all could handle each other. Seems that was the ticket. They have learned that I have a right not to be hugged and I have learned I can open up to them.
So we have started down this road. My first entry in my journal was for Sept. 27, 2013. At that time I weight in at 227 lbs. My most recent entry for Dec. 26, 2014 I weigh in at 242.8 a gain of 15.8 lbs. 
I had spent 18 months or there abouts, 3 years ago losing 30 lbs. I cut back on portions and I walked and walked and walked. I had weighed closer to 260 back then. But at some point I got tired of walking maybe that was the first indication of something going wrong. I maintained my weight for a year quite easily and then I became tired. I would gain a pound or two but I always managed to lose it. Seems I can't do that any more. It became harder and harder to function. It's not like suddenly these things happened. It was insidious and slow. Oh and of course once you are staring  six oh in the face everybody want to blame your age. 
I admit I let thing go for a long time. I have had in the past 15 years 4 major surgeries, I haven't been in the best of health, but I still believe I can improve my health. 
So now I am trying. I hate the elliptical we have but it is easier than dressing in many layers of clothes and trying to walk down a frozen dirt road. I also can set up my computer and watch documentaries, they do help the time go by. I started doing stretches first thing in the morning. Right now I am a balancing act. This stuff is new to me so it is like balancing on a fence. I am never quite sure if I will get the work done or fall off the fence, hit the couch and turn on the TV. I am a procrastinator by nature and this is hard, really hard. So I thought I would write about it. Maybe seeing it down on paper (as is were) I will make me feel like my efforts are real and I have a responsibility to me, to try, to succeed so I'll be around for awhile. Not in a 'home' or a walker, but up and participating in life.

Morning has broken

There is an old hymn 'Morning has broken' that many of us 'older' folk know from the singer Cat Stevens  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWI6ISkzlI

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.
Praise for the singing,
Praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dewfall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight,
Mine is the morning,
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise ev'ry morning,
God's recreation of the new day.

Morning has broken...

This plays in my head when mornings are a bit rough which, for some unknown reason, seems to happen a little more often than I care for.
I remember the mornings of work, kids and school. They were hard. Rushing to be somewhere, trying to get kids ready for school, snow days, hot summers, winter vacations, it all slipped by so fast. What I wouldn't give for one of those early morning scrambles out the door with my boys now.
Like my own childhood I thought those days would never end but they did. One day my boys were little, messy creatures. The next, they were grown men. Now they are married and one is a father. How fast the time flew and I wonder, did I spend enough time with them? That is the thing about parenthood, you don't know if you've done it right no matter how great your kid turns out. There are always questions.
The thing about the song is that even if you don't believe in God, Buddha,  or some deity there is always an awe, a magical moment when the first light of morning comes. Right now our 'black bird' is the crow or raven as it circles in the sky calling out, the dew is more of a frost as winter is creeping up on us and the world (at least here) seems to be falling asleep rather than waking up as it is a season of change.  But even as we head into the coldest part of the year, the mornings despite their temperatures and lack of greenery can be inspiring. Taking a moment, despite the lack of sleep and the feeling of total crankiness, to look out on my small space in the world gives me inner peace. It makes me breath, it makes me create, to move on, to hope, it keeps me alive. I don't know in that mad rush of childhood with my boys if I passed that on to them. It took me too long to learn that lesson, the one were you stop and breath and when you do the world slows down and you can sometimes look back to where you have been and if you are fortunate you can sometimes see through the morning haze, where you might be going.

60, sixty, six-zero.....oh my!

I am 60. The big six zero. Sliding down the slope at a very rapid pace to 70, oh my!!!
I was diagnosed early this year with pre-diabetes which, of course, does not sound as bad as diabetes. I had always thought that if I was diagnosed with some sort of problem that could be cured with A, B or C, I would immediately hop on the band wagon and get it done. Do what ever was necessary to overcome whatever the issue was. I find, however, I am seriously lacking in any type of ambition. My procrastination ability is leading me down the road to Type 2 diabetes. 
I merely have to lose approximately 23 pounds and exercise 3 times a week or better and I will greatly reduce my chances of becoming diabetic. I am even on Metformin which should help the process and I recently had a partial thyroidectomy (which I do take medication for since the remaining piece of thyroid decide to quit when it's larger, lumpier half was removed). I am told by the doctors that the weight should be coming off (I do eat fairly healthy although I admit to a sweet tooth). So why, oh why can't I seem to do it?
What is procrastination (other than an exceedingly long word)? Read what I found below.

The True Meaning of Procrastination

The definition of procrastination

Published on December 2, 2010 by Piers Steel, Ph.D. in The Procrastination Equation

Procrastinate definition, to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost

But it is the Oxford English Dictionary that gets closest to the irrational dark heart of the word. It defines procrastination as a postponement, "often with the sense of deferring though indecision, when early action would have been preferable," or as "defer[ing] action, especially without good reason.

 

Oh yes I can come up with reasons why I haven't lost weight in many, many years. It started out as 'baby weight' after the birth of my second son in which I gained 60 lbs. Then it was not having time to work on the weight loss issue, then moving to Las Vegas, moving back to Vermont, etc., etc. Not one of those reasons were really in any way valid. Oh they might have had a moment but nothing more than that. I have been plagued all my life by procrastination. Some times its okay but most of the time it has cost me a great deal. The great thing about getting older is I realize hindsight really is 20/20. Well maybe it isn't such a great thing.

I have a health problem, something that can't be fixed by drugs, surgery or other people. The only person that can fix it is me. I have the tools, I do know how to fix the problem, I just can't seem to do it. I keep saying, 'tomorrow', day after day and then a week is gone, a month, and nothing has change. The only constant is me saying tomorrow. 

Don't think I haven't spoken with counselors. At this point I could have a degree and open my own office, I speak 'counselor' with ease. I know what they are going to say and how I am going to answer. 

It is awful to think that this long streak of procrastination is actually a long streak of insecurity and self-defeating attitude. And in long I do mean back to my childhood. Back to those first 3 years when all the adults in my life took my life and turned it upside down and inside out. Took me away from those I knew and loved, shattered my world and thrust me into the great unknown. Made me feel small, insignificant, unloved and unwanted. My mother gave me up to be put into a system to be fostered by strangers and eventually given to strangers who would now be my parents.

It has colored my world. Made the dark corners of my mind darker. It has been the imp that always whispered in my ear that I wasn't quite good enough and I procrastinated and the imp was right. In school I didn't live up to my potential. I failed in college. I have a thing about being on time but I can't seem to finish things on time.  

It is the hurtful things said that stick in my mind. The Boston Globe Art Show, I got an honorable mention for a block print. We went to the Saltonstall Building in Boston to see the show, I was over the moon. The work of the other young high school students were amazing. My father saw my piece and said, 'I wonder how you got a mention at all with all this other talent around'. My heart was pierced. 

I got to go to college as an art major not the college I wanted to go to but to a state school where they could turn me into an art teacher, which was not my goal in life. So I procrastinated about going to classes, finishing assignments, my parents paid while I had a good time but like all good times eventually it had to end. I left college, with no degree and no shame at my 'bad' behavior. This was a running theme with my adoptive parents. Me not being quite good enough. Time and time again I proved them right. 

I have said many time that you have to leave your past behind because it can effect your future. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do that. My past keeps bumping into my present which disturbs my future. It subconscious. I don't deliberately dwell on what was I try to focus on what is but there are some days when a phrase, a feeling, a random thought hits and suddenly I am 3. 

One of the last conversations I had with my adoptive mom (we never really spoke of my adoption although I always knew I was adopted) was for her to say to me that when they got the call about a boy and a girl ready for adoption they rushed to get there but the boy was gone so they took me. And that is pretty much how I have always felt, second best. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved my adoptive parents and never want to meet my biological parents (I figured they didn't want me, I didn't need them). I know my adoptive parents did their best but I also realize from being a parent that some people shouldn't be parents and mine were the kind that they were great at being an aunt and uncle but not so great with a small, redhead child, that grew up with ideas and thoughts of her own and a temper to match her hair. 

But that was then and this is now. It is not their fault nor anyone else's that I find myself in this predicament. It is my body, my weight and my brain, attitude, or procrastination that has gotten me stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can move forward, but frankly, I afraid, I know how, but it's like the proverbial tunnel and I don't see the light at the end and that scares me

I guess the only way to do it is when I wake up in the morning I have to say 'today' and continue to say it every day and to keep looking at the positive in this life of mine.

 

I sorta wish it was Fall.

Here it is mid-July, and I am wishing for fall. Oh not for the reasons you may think. Not because of the summer heat with the air caressing one's skin like silk. Not because of the early morning birds singing, cawing and crying out waking me from my slumbers. But because fall is the end season. When the lovely flowers of summer die back, the trees become a wild quilt of colors draped across the landscape. My green, beautiful world recedes into browns and gray and eventually the snow comes.
In the fall the days are ripe with the last fruits of the season. Apples become cider and pumpkins become pies. We gather and pick, blanch, boil, can and freeze. We dig, store, mulch and prepare for winter. We pile books next to our chairs and pull out projects forgotten in the rush of Spring. We bask in the shorter warm days and wrap ourselves against the cold nights. Eventually frost comes and the gardens are completely gone for the season. There is no more gathering. Just the slow and patient job of cleaning up the debris, putting away the now empty pots, gathering the detritus of a mad gardener and storing it in sheds and cellars until another spring comes. During those time when I am doing rote jobs that do not require my attention my mind wanders to the years before. Places, times, people, etc., memories floating around my head like the leaves falling from trees, swirling and dancing in the breeze until they finally float to the ground.
We are getting older. Our children have grown, married and made us grandparents. My parents have died, their ashes stashed in little holes in granite walls in a state far south of here. There have been marriage and divorce with the family this past year. I have watched with great sadness my father in law become almost house bound due to health issues. Visits to the cottage by the lake is less children and more adults, although some adults are more childlike by the water.
I am just feeling I need Fall to hide in for awhile. To let the memories come and go as I am outside feeling my world tucking itself in for the long winter season. Fall is a restorative to me. It brings the world into perspective. The many stems, stalks and leaves that I gather will compost and enrich the soil for another generation of plants. Many of my flowering plants are perennials and they are only disappearing beneath the soil to gather strength for the coming spring. The trees will leaf again in plethora of green in the Spring. It is the ebb and flow of life.
I will still enjoy my Summer with all that it can bring. But this year Fall will have a little more meaning and I will try not to rush through it, running quickly to the holidays because I want them behind me (I don't enjoy them much any more) so I can get to the next year and the next spring. I will try to slow my time down a bit. Try more for 'child' time when Summer was forever and Fall was meant for gathering leaves because the colors were pretty and pressing them in books, making acorn necklaces and breaking open the milkweed pods to watch the seeds with their downy parachutes fly off in the breeze.
I admit this whole growing older part of life now is bothering me. When you are a kid you want to rush into being older, but when you are older you want to put the brakes on and slow down.
Not constantly and not every day but every now and then.....I am terrified. I am on the backside of my life with less years in front than behind. It's scary but I am going to try not to let my fear of the future destroy me enjoying the future. And that is why I need Fall.

What dream is this?

Usually my dreams are made of the mundane which my brain twists and turns until it has something a little more interesting. If the remnants of the dreams stay with me once I awaken I can usually unravel the threads to find out what made my dream.
This morning I awoke after a very vivid dream of a little girl that didn't want to look like a Jew. I never said any of my dreams were politically correct. They are what they are. Surrounded by a world being torn apart with areas of relative tranquility the child cut off her hair so she wouldn't look so Jewish. Now I have to tell you here that one of the quirks of my dreaming mind is people do not have faces. I don't know why this is. My dreams are very detailed in many ways, but people remain faceless. Anyway, she cut off her hair and in it's place grew mums (the kind that sort of look like a daisy, white petals and yellow centers but they were mums, it's all in the details). Her father found her and told her it didn't matter the way she looked she was who she was. She cried. End of dream. I will also note here that my dreams tend to have resolutions but I suppose there is none for this one.
Why this dream? Why now? I suppose (this is the thread pulling part) it is because I am not nor have ever really been satisfied with me. I thought my life would be 'more', not that it is less but I suppose at one point I thought I would be a renown artist, but lacking a true talent and passion that 'dream' faded a long time ago. I have talent but I don't have drive. And truth be told you have to have both, probably with drive being the bigger portion to achieve greatness in any realm that you go into.
Another thread to be pulled is my upcoming birthday, sixty. Sixty means I might be here on this earthly plain another 20 or 30 years if I am lucky. It doesn't seem like much and I feel like I haven't done much. What will I leave behind? What will end up in some second hand shop in the future? It makes me wonder. Maybe that is the world (my world) being torn apart.
It all comes back to looking at people around me and realizing I am no longer young. I don't have an unlimited horizon in front of me. It is finite, it really does have an end. It is depressing.
We all die. Everything dies and we humans are afraid of that. We use euphemisms for dead. We 'lose' someone, or someone has 'passed', 'gone to the other side'. Damn, is there another side? Cause if there was wouldn't of Houdini come back to tell his wife? Wouldn't people who have died come back one more time to comfort their love ones? To say 'it's good, I am safe now'.
I don't believe in ghosts (other than the ones our mind creates), I don't believe in heaven (you will see those you have loved), or hell (lets not go there), angels, trolls, the Lock Ness Monster, I think you get my drift. I do believe that there is something within us which makes us great, ordinary, bad, it is what makes us, us, that goes on after we are dead. The rain that has fallen on our heads has been around the world and back. The air we breath has gone down through the centuries. Our world is full of stardust and wonder. We are no different. From generation to generation, we live, we create, we love, we kill, we die. It never really changes.
We are really all the same. We have these amazing bodies which take us through our lives. Vessels of all shapes, colors and conditions floating on a sea, on a planet, orbiting a sun in a small corner of a very large universe.
I forget sometimes when I wallow in this pit of despair that I (and my husband) have created something amazing and wonderful, our sons. Even after I am gone, they will be there, breathing in the air that I breathed, watching the sun come up that I watched, looking at the moon, staring at the stars and running through the rain. Now there is a legacy.