T(a)inted sands

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When I was around 7 or 8 years old, I attended bible school at the church of some friends of the family.  One day, the craft activity was making those landscapes with colored sands in a jar.

Everyone said mine was the nicest one. As I was making my way out the stairwell of a side exit afterward, an older boy and his friend stopped me and commented on my sandscape.  One of them said he could show me something really cool. He said to shake the jar, which I did gently at first, instinctively cautious. Unfortunately, I was naive and gullible and shook harder at his urging.

The beautiful layers of colors were a uniform, ugly green. I remember being surprised at how thoroughly ruined it was. The other boys saw that on my face and laughed.

I’m sorry to tell such a sad story, but don’t feel bad. It was an important lesson that stuck with me. I was less naive after that. Maybe it kept me from something worse.

I used to feel like I was that jar of sand. Actually, anyone could be. We all start out pristine and beautiful. Then life shakes us up.

All the teasing and bullying and exclusion left psychological issues to work through, which I have. There were physical things as well that mixed up the colors.  I have less than half volume hearing in my right ear due to having a growth remove. It wasn’t a tumor. It had to do with chronic infections damaging the ear drum. I let the growth go for about two years after I knew about it, thinking my boss at the time was going to get health benefits for me, as he had talked about. I was also paralyzed into inaction and indecision by depression, so the time slipped by, though I did get it done with the help of medical assistance and private grant program.

Another thing was the surgery I had for a bowel obstruction and appendicitis.  My Crohn’s disease was never diagnosed before that. It should have been. Now I have to mix and drink a powder medication that keeps me from having severe diarrhea 24/7. I basically can’t live without it.

There’s also the loss of self image with the nasty scars from the incision and the colostomy.  Everyone said the incision scar would be a thin white line, but there’s an inch wide swath. I was only 28, then, and still in good shape.

All the undiagnosed, unrecognized problems and issues that I spoke of in yesterday’s post, took their toll as well. I remember feeling totally burned out after two years of community college and working maybe twenty hours a week, when I was in my early twenties. I didn’t know yet about the sleep apnea or Crohn’s disease, or even the bipolar depression. That’s a long story, but suffice it to say that I went through a period of personal growth and discovery after I graduated.

The important thing to take away here, is that, I’m still standing! With a God-given resilience and strength, I kept going and learning.

The colored grains of sand are still in there. And, unlike the literal ones, they can be made beautiful again. No one can take your inner beauty, your soul. So, I hope you can feel uplifted from all this. The last thing I want is to depress anyone.

Go live life to the fullest. Don’t worry about what was or what might have been. Discover what life has in store for you.

I’m ok, but falling apart, at 46

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Unless I live to be 92 or more, I’m a little past mid-life. Let me take stock. Nest egg = pitiful. Career = meh (doing something tolerable while working on creative endeavors.) Social life = a little quiet, but improving. Love life = mind your own business. Well at least I have my health…. problems.

I’ve got Crohn’s disease, sleep apnea, bipolar depression, and high blood pressure. With the Crohn’s disease comes joint pain and stiffness. Fortunately, pain is infrequent for me. It’s more stiffness. I look like an old fart when I get up after sitting for a while. (No offense to the old farts. Actually, I am an old fart to people in their 20’s. It’s all relative.)

Tomorrow will have a dubious distinction: I’ll be starting on high blood pressure medication.  I declined going on it, as my doctor suggested, for the last several months, hoping to bring it down after quitting smoking and losing weight, and drinking less caffeine, and working out more…. Well, I did the first thing. I was only smoking little cigars mostly on weekends for the last year and a half. Quit cigarettes on 10/10/16.  Completely smoke free for almost two months.

Anyway, my doc was more insistent on this visit than in the past, so I figured I’d humor her and take the silly pill, until I lose some weight and see how it goes.  I call my cat Chub-chub. If he could talk, he’d probably be saying, right back at ya. Just kidding. I’m about 55 pounds overweight and it’s all on my belly.  So, I’m on a blood pressure medication, even though I’m far too young for such a thing. (Is that delusional? They say the mind is the first thing to go.)

I take a lot of pills already, so what’s one more? The pharmacy staff aren’t tired of seeing me yet. My insurance company hasn’t dropped me. I have more doctors than an aging millionaire. Life is good.

All kidding aside, I really do feel fortunate. My Crohn’s disease has been quiet for a number of years, my manic depression has never been severe, and I have a CPAP machine for my sleep apnea.

I can’t say I’ve always felt that way, but I’ve learned that self pity is poison to the soul. While it’s important to let yourself feel what you feel, it helps to keep a positive outlook and enjoy each moment as much as you can.

Signing off, so I can go get some beauty rest. Too late. Oh well, I need to sleep anyway.

 

 

Irritable days

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For those who don’t know, I have bipolar disorder. Well, technically, it’s bipolar depression, which is basically the same thing but with tendencies more for the low side and not the extreme manic highs.

I’ve done well for many years, and thankfully, I still am doing well. I did, however, recently request a change from my doctor regarding one of my medications. I’ve been trying to get in shape and not getting anywhere. I’ve had increased appetite and sometimes pig out almost compulsively. I didn’t make the association with the med until recently.

My doc didn’t want to stop the med altogether right away, so he just reduced the dose. It’s been a couple weeks and I’m feeling very irritable. I also finished up my nicotine gum treatment last week.  It could be either one. I haven’t smoked cigarettes for a year and a half, but was smoking little cigars on weekends and occasionally in between, until the last 6 weeks.  I haven’t smoked at all in that time, but chewed a few pieces of the gum a day.

So, it’s hard to say what’s causing the irritability. I’m just sharing this as part of my experiences with bipolar. It’s something people probably aren’t real aware of, the irritability, that is.  Everyone knows about the mood swings, but there are a lot of secondary symptoms, too.

I also find myself losing interest in things over the years, like film making and origami. But I still like writing and photography, so it’s not all bad. Maybe that’s not a depression thing, but just a normal getting older thing.  I may be over-analyzing. I do that.

Then there’s the anxiety, but I’ll save that for another day, and make this post a short one for a change.