Deep Breath and Prayer

Today for me, I: Ordered new license plates. This is the first year in several that I do not have to put tags on two vehicles. I have not had personalized plates for a lot of years, so having a little left over from income tax, I ordered new plates. They should be in 30-45 days they say. I have had several different vanity plates through the years. My first ones were "BLEW 8" for my softball number (only because 35, my basketball # was not available). I had "BLEWY 99" for a lot of years. Got those in 1999 (sometimes things just make too much sense) when I got my bachelor's degree (and now we all know the significance of 99). Since this was a "just for me" activity, I got EIU plates and of course...I got "BLEWY" on them!!! Can't wait to see them for real! Bought new coloring books. Yup, sure did. I have this huge collection of crayons and colored pencils and no good coloring books. Sure, I have some of those activity pads, yet they are l...

Happy 100th post! Am moving a little out of the norm and writing earlier in the day. I have a few projects on my plate for today - one is a web client that I have got to get caught up on. As much as I don't want to spend the whole day on it, I have got to take a deep breath and just go for it. Besides, I will have to write a blurb later tonight for my "what I did for myself today" so, I will still get to make a late night post. It has been hard "doing things" again after this summer. I have been in this "do only what you have to do" and then maybe try to do more if you can. I get overwhelmed so easy now. I am not sure how to explain it because there is a difference. So, used to, I could juggle the world, my life, and all other things thrown my way. Sure, I may not have done it in the most healthy of ways, yet I could do it. It would exhaust me across the board and again, I could pull it off. As long as I kept moving, doing, juggling, staying busy, the ...

"I did good today." That would be what I said as I pulled my night shirt on. I made healthy choices today. I made happy choices today. I did some things for me. So the first two happen pretty regularly now and it is the third one added to it that makes it a day in the really effective column. I had the chance to go out with the team this morning. This was the first time in over a year that I got to go with the whole group. Last year my recovery took a bit longer than planned then the fight with dehydration kept me from going out. Not this year though! I am not very good at doing things for myself. Yah I know, not a big epiphany there. I struggle with allowing myself to be first, always have. Maybe a more correct statement would be that I struggle with allowing myself to be anything except last. I have always had the mindset that if I took time for myself then I was taking time away from doing for others. If I placed myself before another it was showing pride. It is that skewe...

When I was about 7 years old or so, the Blue Angels came to Chanute AFB to perform. My Grandpa Morris, a retired Navy Master Chief, took my brother.....and I had to stay home. I was "too little" to go. Now, you try to convince a little girl who loved planes and outside and all the stories of Navy ships and deployments, that she can't go see the Blue Angels because she is "too little." I was crushed. There was a little light at the end of the tunnel....Grandpa shot 8mm footage of the show that we got to watch later. I would continue to grow up with a love for the flying blue and yellow jets of the US Navy and always carry a little regret that I didn't ever get to see them live. Fast forward to Summer 2011. My sister calls me and says, "Hey, I know you aren't 40, until next year, but I have a great present to celebrate your 39th." Of course she kept me in suspense until it all but drove me crazy, then she finally told me - tickets to the St. Loui...

One would think I could get it through my thick skull....things always work out. Sure, timing and logistics and parameters and various things of such may not fall into the places we hope - or maybe they do, just not in the order we thought - and still, in the end, things have worked out. As much as we have been taught to stop, breathe, and think, I find that once in a while, I still am quick to fall back into old behaviors and patterns. I want to jump to solving things like I did in the past, forgetting that I do not have to go down that road anymore. A part of me starts to dive into more destructive thoughts/behaviors while another part starts screaming, "wait!!! you don't have to do that!!!" Therefore, I may do something or say something, soon followed by smacking myself up the side of the head, and trying not to call myself a fool. Then I sit, think, ponder, plan, and all that stuff and come out with a solution that, if I would have just slowed down in the first place,...

Ya know, I really am not sure what is wrong with me. [Oh, the laughs and comments I can hear from the peanut gallery!] Honestly, I know what I have "been told" is wrong with me (depression, panic disorder and agoraphobia, general anxiety, social anxiety - yes, because plain anxiety just isn't enough) and I really have no clue what all is "on paper" from throughout the years. I know there is a big huge PTSD stamp in one medical file because I remember the conversation, "You know once I write this, it makes it concrete" as we wrote my medical leave papers. I know there are probably plenty of ICD-9 codes that have been submitted through the years with my name attached to them. The thought has crossed my mind plenty of times to simply inquire, "what is wrong with me" and I have never been able to actually ask it. Not sure if it was fear of knowing or fear of someone telling me that there was nothing wrong with me. Sometimes I wonder if knowing re...

I cannot say that I have yet to come to a point where I regret taking class and to just clarify, I cannot say that I will come to one either. At some level I think that I have been living in a naive little bubble though. Somewhere I guess I had this notion that as I learn and grow and heal that things would, "from this point forward", would always be different. Yes, they are, do not get me wrong. Life is different and more enjoyable and livable and all these great wonderful things, and still it is real and habitual and selective. I may change, yet life is going to keep throwing the same things at me. I never used to have a second thought about sacrificing something I wanted, something I was, something I enjoyed, etc. As I had said in class the other night - everyone else first and if there is anything left at the end, I will take it. If there is nothing left at the end, then that is fine as it is only me anyways. I don't know really why I have always been that way. I can ...