Random Fun, Funnies, Rascal Observations

Do we take life on in a haphazard kind of way or as a created purpose?  If we admit to being human then maybe just maybe it is a little of one and a lot of the other.  

The last few weeks I decided with abundant tenacity to create, observe, grab and appreciate any and all levity available around me.  It was an exercise in stubborn willfulness because it could have been super easy to have fallen prey to feeling down lately because my health has been profoundly uncooperative and just plain sucky.  Instead of concentrating on that and giving that power my determination has been in favour of finding things to laugh about.  Who does not love to laugh right?  It of course did not make the sucky health go away however it did provide a rejuvenation of strength.  If we get to the point where we realize that the hand life has dealt us is less than desirable then strength for the fight I believe makes the difference between becoming a victim or champion of our own stories.

Why is it that so often when we are down for the count from a health perspective that the narrative that replays in our minds is the message of defeat automatically?  The recording may include things like “there’s no point” followed with a number of optional actions/reactions.  It may be composed of “no point in leaving our room, our home, showering, trying, getting dressed, getting off the couch, exercising, staying in touch with friends”, and an infinite list of other important yet counterintuitive activities to participate in especially with our minds screaming how pointless they are.  I find that I battle the line between pushing my already wiped out body beyond a humane level and nearly giving in to the “what the point is there” argument a negative mindset produces when I am especially not well.  Do you remember as a kid finding a really steep grassy hill & rolling down it?  The fun part was the rolling but once you hit the bottom sometimes it was a thud & of course you had the uphill walk back up if you wanted to roll again.  In a parallel adult world I am attempting to choose to do a sort of the rolling down part & adding in humour instead of the emotional thud and bottoming out & of course the uphill climb is one we do daily if we have a 365 (chronic illness or many).  

It can prove to be a balancing act between being enthusiastic towards life & not being a faker I find.  I don’t want to turn into a complainer who is a pain to be around & yet I also don’t want to have to pretend for everyone's benefit that I am fine when I am not.  That is a balancing beam don’t you find?  So often our loved ones have their hearts in the right place when they give us encouragement like rest up, take better care of yourself, and other oft heard phrases.  And then there is the strange question posed from others countless times enquiring if we are all better.  Since there is no cure for the 365s that is a baffling question to me.  Still though I remind myself that those that care for us truly have their hearts in the right place.  Maybe some of our loved ones even feel helpless at times & at a bit of a loss as to what to say.  That is where I just try to search the heart of the loved one & cut them a break if they say something strange & unhelpful & silently forgive them.  Okay, okay, okay, levity please time…

If you are a parent you will likely relate to what I am about to share with you.  There are so many days that I would like to freeze the clock because I feel as though I blinked & my little boys have grown too fast.  I remember each time my husband & would bring home one of our 3 sons from the hospital after they were born someone would say to us to enjoy every minute with our kids because they grow up so fast.  That is true big time.  The balance between giving to our kids, looking after type 1 and the other 365s and the other aspects of life can gobble up an entire day leaving little to no time to recharge.  Somewhere along the way to parenthood the message that it is selfish to take a wee bit of time for ourselves each day to recharge has been cemented. Guilt is a heavy emotion & can direct us to behave in ways that are less than nurturing for ourselves.  On Civic Holiday Monday, I decided to ask my husband to hold down the fort at home while I carved out 2 hours this morning to go out to the coffee shop to write.  I don’t even try to write when our sons are home & in this case that means for the entire summer other than today.  So here I am sitting here enjoying a double espresso followed by my green tea chaser listening to my downloaded French cafe music with a goofy smile on my face.  Instead of living in a haphazard type of way I am choosing more & more in big & small ways to live with rascal intention.  I choose to be neither happy nor unhappy as these are fleeting emotions largely based on something outside of myself.  I am choosing to admit that my health has been sucky but I continue to pursue good & great food for my soul.  And I am attempting (with limited success) to let more stuff aka pointless shit go.  It continues to drive me up the wall when people try to complicate the simple but I am trying with all my rascal might to remember what matters & what needs to be quickly discarded in terms of feisty over reaction (internally) so that I don’t feel the need to implode\explode\over react.  That is very much a process.  As a bit of a humorous aside currently in the coffee shop there is a guy seated across the room with his cell phone having a fully fledged tantrum yelling at something he read somewhere on his device.  The sociologist in me is highly amused & the human being in me feels badly for him.  He is at the coffee shop by himself in a lovely relaxing surrounding & is not decompressing to say the least.  Public meltdowns are pretty awkward especially when an adult is the one tantruming down.  We all get stressed out so how great is it to choose to decompress in whatever way works best for us.  Whenever I play my French Cafe cd at home my husband & sons joke about that.  It is gentle music that lifts my spirits though.  Music is powerful & I am sure that you have many artists that lift your spirits too.  

Laughing at myself has been added to my list of humour sports.  There are occasions that I have found myself in directionally challenged situations.  That is just a fancy way of saying that I have learned to be mindful of planning out my driving routes to densely populated cities in my wee corner of the world.  I affectionately refer to my driving routes as “goat paths” because I really only end up on major freeways by mistake.  Last month I arranged to pick up a friend from a city about 45 minutes drive via a goat path I have driven many times.  Everything was going smoothly until I went to take the usual exit & arrived to find it completely blocked off with a suggested detour via a very major freeway.  That was an unwelcome surprise & I decided to gather my wits in a nearby neighborhood (posh area with a couple of neighbors who kept a close eye on me ha ha in case I was casing out their homes ha ha ha) & use the gps of my new vehicle to figure out alternate routes.  For some reason my gps would not work so I just decided to try a different route that I hoped would connect up.  It did work thankfully however I was really not sure how it would work on the way back since the route goes in a different jog each way.  With my friend in tow however I announced that we were in this together & said this could be an adventure & we both just laughed.  Somehow it went better than I thought it would on the drive back & so now I have yet another goat path...yay.  My driving adventures\strange adventures continued later that week when I had one of what seems like an infinite number of medical tests outside of my town.  Since I have numerous medical appointments in this particular city that I have never driven to about an hour away from my home I decided that I would map out a goat path to get there.  As I drove along this path I experienced a slow country drive & counted it as a win & an opportunity to enjoy listening to my eclectic music playlist.  The exit\entrance into the city however provided an interesting challenge for this rascal when I literally had to go through 4 rare roundabouts.  Once I arrived at my appointment with 1 minute to spare I felt like a bit of a broken biscuit emotionally from the circles of nonsense...completely unnecessary complexities of driving those roundabouts.  Some urban planner must have just wanted a challenge...insert curse words.  My swear jar became heavier that day & during subsequent appointments.  Thankfully my husband offered to drive me to these appointments after the first experience.  He also offered to take me to Starbucks on the appointment dates for an espresso which is a huge deal since he is not fond of that coffee spot to say the least.  He & I have had this sweet banter back & forth pretty much since our sons were born of what qualifies as a date & what does not.  Over the years we have gotten a laugh out of this banter.  Trips together to the doctor don’t count as a date but if there is a stop for a fancy coffee it does count & stuff like that.  Picking up the car from the mechanics does not count as a date nor does grocery shopping & stuff like that I like to remind him ha ha.  You just have to create laughs where you can right.  

My love of coffee & tea are no great secret.  One of my favourite shows years ago was the Gilmore Girls & the coffee references in that show are plentiful.  I add myself to the excited crowd of fans who are thrilled about this November since several new episodes of this show are going to be released.  In the meantime I took the opportunity to watch a few episodes of Jerry Seinfeld's show, “Comedians in cars getting coffee.”  I tried watching with my husband & our oldest son who is a huge coffee fiend.  While I found lots of laughs in the show my companions didn't see it.  I guess I am just more eager to laugh ha ha.  

Although I like to think that I am an open learner honestly it has been humbling to be a student of someone who is nearly as young as our oldest son.  Type 1 high blood sugars over the past 4 weeks in particular have been trying to kick my ass.  I have been tweaking my basal profiles & readjusting bolus rates & correcting the hell out of my blood sugars never quite arriving anywhere near the ballpark of my blood sugar goal.  To complicate things the inflammation going through my body over the past 3 weeks has been beating me up from the inside out from the psoriatic arthritis like I Have never experienced before.  My young PA mentor gave me wise advice & that was that if I keep pushing myself especially when I am having hellish pa flare ups then the recovery time will be a week or more.  He told me that he has learned to slow down during flares & in the end he gets more done & he told me to do the same.  I have a tendency to overdo so this is tough however little by little I am cooperating with sucky pa flare ups.  I admit that I hate the fact that it is taking me about 4 or more times longer to complete activities each day by slowing the physical pace down.  The reality though is that I obviously hate it more not being able to use my feet at all.  I am fiercely independent so this is tough tough tough asking for even the slightest help from even loved ones profoundly close to me.  The great news is that although it has taken me several weeks, finally the indescribable joint pain especially on the bottoms of my feet is tolerable.  I found the slowing the pace down, letting nonsensical bs go, finding things to laugh about on purpose and a couple of pain remedies have helped to alleviate the 10 out of 10 pain bringing it to more like a bearable 5 out of 10.  In addition to humour when I have been taking sit down breaks I have been thoroughly enjoying an outstanding series co-produced by the loveable Tom Hanks on various decades in history.  This week my breaks have been enthusiastically filled with episodes of “The Seventies” & if you haven't watched any of these documentaries you are in for a treat as they are beyond well done.  Previously I had caught one episode of “the Eighties” decade & one of “the Sixties.”  Next summer “the Nineties” will be released & I am confident it will be every bit as amazing.  “The Seventies” is especially interesting I am finding …  If you are looking to schedule in a wee bit of gentle time be sure to catch some of the episodes.  You will love it.  It is a massage for the brain too & far removed from the crap of the borage of reality brain numbing shows taking over the air waves I believe.  The jury is out whether sitting down with my husband to watch an episode of this series qualifies as a date or not ha ha.  

My heart's hope for you is that you find humor, enjoyment and food for your soul & fill yourself full of what truly matters on purpose.  Life can be lived haphazard or on purpose.  We have that choice.

Smiles, Saundie

As always be gentle with yourself.  The next story will be shared on Monday August 29th :)