Giving Myself a New Gift (or Three) Every Year

Change and movement are a part of life. Every year around my birthday I start to look at how things are at that moment, what I managed to accomplish in the last year, and what I'd like to accomplish by my next birthday. There's been a lot of changes this last year, moving being one of the best ones. We're in a place we really like now, and that makes a huge difference in how much I want people in my personal space. I'm no longer ashamed of where I live. I'm thrilled to be able to make plans about what furniture and other decor to buy, and where to put everything. I have an interest in having nice things again, where before I just looked around and shrugged, saying, "What the hell difference would it make? It'll still look like a $#!thole."

It was a psychological 'giving up' caused by depressing surroundings, and it really is amazing how much better I feel as a human being these days. I realize I haven't been writing, but I don't have a comfortable writing space set up with a chair and desk. At the moment I'm sitting on the edge of a mattress that's sitting on the floor. My laptop is propped up with a large stack of reference books. I'm hunched over in an amazingly uncomfortable position just so I can bang out a few words to my regular readers. Well, that and I'm sort of organizing my thoughts for the year to come.

That being said, I need to get back on topic. Last year I became even more politically involved, particularly in my own country. I actually became an official member of a political party. I donated $25 I think, and I have a 3-year membership with the Green Party. I could have gone with the NDP, actually, but there are things that are annoying me about them. Still, either party is better than the Progressive Conservatives (or PC party) or the Liberal party. Both of those are in the pockets of big oil and all that jazz, and they both voted for Keystone XL. The only ones to vote against it were NDP and an Independent. I'm really hoping we can get rid of Harper in the next federal election, because he's destroyed a lot of Canada - physically destroyed it, I mean.

The third gift I gave myself last year, though it wasn't really under my control so much, was finally getting in to see the right orthopedic surgeon. Nothing has been done as yet, except to book me for a group of doctors that will be giving me a whole bunch of ultrasound-guided injections of long-acting local anesthesia. That won't happen until after my birthday, so I can't count pain relief for last year, but I can count the progress toward healing.

This coming year I'm looking at my last year before I hit 45. That's kind of a milestone birthday, I think. So this next year I'm going to give myself some really important gifts for that birthday. The first is related to the last one I mentioned for last year. I'm going ahead with the treatment that will discover the extent of my injuries, and exactly where the worst of the pain is coming from. I want to be able to jump out of bed in the morning, rather than rolling cautiously, straightening each part of my body slowly so that I can finally stand up. The first couple of steps I take are pretty painful. I want that way of life gone this year. Maybe the doctors won't be able to schedule my repairs fast enough for my next birthday, because it sounds like there's a lot to be done. However, there's something else I can do to help that along.

This leads me to my next gift to myself, and that simply physical fitness. Knowing that the vast majority of my pain will be treated, despite it being only a mask of the real problems, I'm confident I can start to move around a lot more. I'll have to start out cautiously, because I've basically been in a chair or a bed for the last few years. It's hard to exercise when it's excruciating, but even more so when you're told you're not supposed to because it will cause more damage. In fact, I've been told a lot of crap from doctors that never told me there were ways around my various issues. I have a problem with my knees that could have been fixed with simple exercises, and I only found that out a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that my disc problems in my back can be healed, but I was told by another orthopedic surgeon that my back was permanently screwed.

In other words, I'm taking what the doctors tell me with a grain of salt, I'm doing my own research, and I'm going to start moving my body more and more throughout the year. Yoga, resistance/weight-training, and aerobic activity. I'm going to start recording my results, and maybe I'll share them here, too. It depends on how I feel about it once I get going. I'm not sharing half-naked before & after pictures, don't worry. I'll spare everyone that much. I might do some fully-dressed, though. We'll see. Whatever the case may be, I'll be in a lot better shape by my next birthday, and I'm doing it the right way - as a lifestyle change, not a binge program. The last thing I need is more injuries, or to stop doing it because it's just too drastic. I need to have fun with it. Thankfully I like the activities I've chosen, and they're well-rounded with regard to a fitness program. Flexibility, strength and endurance, which are all things we need to live a full life.

I'm also setting up my home so that I have a nice working and living environment, so I can get back to serious and consistent writing again, in addition to my other work. I want to be able to put in the time on everything and feel productive again. In my head I'm almost always working, because I do love the things I do. However, translating that to actually getting the work done is a different story. Not being in so much pain will help a great deal there, too. Not only because pain is distracting and exhausting and makes me want to curl up in the fetal position, but because I take so many pills to counteract the pain that my brain just can't stick with things long enough to accomplish anything. You wouldn't believe how many blog posts and articles I've started and stalled out on halfway through. Once I stop working on a piece it ends up being deleted. I never go back to finish it off. I either rewrite the whole thing or just dump it entirely.

Cautiously I say, too, that this year I want to finish and publish at least one book. Even if it's an anthology I edit where I've only written one or two short stories, and there are stories from other writers in it. It's past time for me to get my fiction work out there. I'm also considering writing a small book on rape recovery. Never mind the fact that I've got the makings of more than one series of books. There's my demon series and the serial killer one. I've got lots of notes, and the basic outlines for story arcs throughout, so I think they'll be great if I ever have a comfortable place to sit and get some real writing done. I know...excuses, excuses...

I look forward to every single year of my life. I don't celebrate birthdays with any brouhaha, because it's just not the way I roll. I'd rather sit at home doing exactly the same things I'd be doing on any other day. The exception is that we usually have a special meal, with cake or pie after, and then my daughter and I watch a bunch of movies. That won't be possible this year. My daughter is working 12-hours shifts on weird rotations, so she has to sleep the entire time she's home. Not to mention the fact that she wasn't getting any shifts at all for a while there. We barely have the rent money now, so we won't be buying steaks & cakes. That's okay, too. I don't mind being broke so long as we have the essentials and we're not short on the rent. We won't starve and the landlord is getting paid.

Maybe I'll watch some movies on my own, but more likely I'll play games on my computer or work toward this year's goals.I still have to finish my starting routine for working out, and determine my level of progression, but I have fun planning that kind of thing. I can get bogged down in the details and find myself distracted, but as long as I cover the first few weeks I can always plan the next steps when I get to them.

Of course, I also continued my education last year, and that's ongoing. I went through the MIT course on programming with Python, and I'm enrolled in Linux and calculus courses at the moment. I think there's a chemistry course in there somewhere, too, but it hasn't started yet. I plan to delve into CSS and Java, among other things. For me, I think the best part of living life is learning whatever I can latch my brain onto. We become so much more by educating ourselves, opening our horizons. Every course I take brings in new perspectives on life, no matter what the topic. I see just a slightly different slant, and that's such a huge benefit - not only to me, but to my readers as well. I can offer so much more to everyone around me if I keep becoming more than what I am now.

I remember many years ago reading in a book about a married couple whose philosophy was that we are not human beings, but rather we're human becomings, and for me that was a crystallizing moment. I understood right then that that was the person I need to be (or become, if you will). So, every year I get just a little bit closer to the person I'm supposed to grow into. Maybe I'll make it there, and maybe I won't, but it would be a real shame if I didn't even try. Alas, no matter how many years are between this one and the one on my birth certificate, I don't think I'll ever really grow up, which makes me smile just thinking about it.

Time Wounds All Heels

I've said it before and I'll say it again - time is life. Every second that ticks by is a piece of life. "I'll do it tomorrow," can become a mantra that causes your life to drip slowly away. Now stop for just a few seconds of that life and let that thought sink in. It's water down the drain. Water that never comes back to you. We all take our lives for granted, probably far more often than not. Then there are the other excuses we give to ourselves. We'll say it's not the right time, but we rarely define what the right time is going to be. When we do actually define it, we push it back with another excuse. Obviously it's not something we want to do if we keep finding excuses to get out of doing it.

Quite often there are legitimate obstacles to the things we want. We can respond to those in a few ways. First, we can throw up our hands in defeat. Second, we can flounder and whimper about how we don't know what to do to fix things. Third, we can put off dealing with the obstacle even if we know what to do to get rid of it because we view the task on a level akin to swallowing live bait. Fourth, we can clamp down on our rampant idiocy in the face of resistance and actually do what needs to be done.

I've been meandering back and forth between all of those things in the last few days. Now that I'm finally feeling well enough to write and get some other work done, I've got a lot to catch up on and a life I'd like to get back to. It's not that I'm not getting anything done, but there are some onerous tasks ahead of me that have me cringing like I'm getting feedback at 5,000 dB.

First, I have to clean my apartment, top to bottom. For a non-domestic type like me, that's definitely cringe-worthy. Like many people I like my place to be clean, despite not actually wanting to do any of the cleaning, but my medicated state has induced a distinct lack of repulsion to any messes. Pet food scattered all over the floor because my ferret likes to dig in the food dishes? Check. Dust and hair on the bathroom sink? Check. Cat yak that has dried on the floor? Check. Then I look at the mess and want to cry, or sleep or something 'cuz I don't usually cry over spilled, well, anything.

If it were just those three things it wouldn't be a big deal, but I have boxes I never unpacked from moving in here a year ago. Books that have never been put on shelves, paperwork that was never filed, burned discs that need sorting, dishes to be washed, laundry to do...ah, hell. I'm getting tired just making a damn list. I don't get a lift out of cleaning, unless I'm feeling really hyper from way too much caffeine and mp3s blasting in my ears. It's hard to find the balance with caffeine, though, because just the smallest amount too much and I'm nauseated from it. Back to looking at the mess and wanting to sleep. Instead I turn right back to my computer.

I can think of a million reasons not to clean without even trying. I'll even try to blame it on my ferret who likes to get in the way. He takes serious issue with me removing his dirty potty pads, for one thing. I get the, "I worked on that all week," look. It never fails that he wakes up the instant I start cleaning, too, and suddenly it's the perfect time to play and jump on whatever I'm doing. He's almost a legitimate excuse, really. However, my apartment does actually have doors, and I can either shut him up in my bedroom where he's usually sleeping anyway, or I can shut him out of the bedroom if I happen to be cleaning that. It's more an emotional thing, I think. I hate being separated from him, especially when he starts pawing at the door to get to me and my heart breaks.

Considering my million arguments against cleaning, I'm sure it's easy to consider the possibility that I might not have quite so many reasons to clean. Sure, I need to organize my paperwork so I can do my back taxes, but that's yet another cringe-worthy task I'm not looking forward to, so it's not the greatest impetus in the world. There is a very good reason to get through those levels of resistance, of course. Revenue Canada owes me a whole lot of money. I just have to file the paperwork to get it. It might sound easy, but if you've never done business or corporate taxes you can keep your opinion to yourself. It's not just my income taxes either. I have GST returns to do. Considering we no longer even have GST (Goods and Services Tax), I should probably get those done. Not that the government was actually kind enough to get rid of the tax completely. Instead they mashed it with the provincial tax. It's no lower than it was - it just has a different name. Over the years they did reduce it from 7% to 5%, so it's better than nothing, but then it wasn't that long ago that they introduced the GST in the first place, and it was only supposed to be temporary. Now that our prime minister, Harper, has sunk the country into debt again (and this happened before the global economy tanked), I don't see them getting rid of it any time soon.

Cleaning my apartment and getting organized is going to take a few days, and of course I always push it off until the next day. I'm not being lazy. It's annoyance avoidance. I just don't do the things I hate doing. I do a lot in a day. When I feel like crap because I'm in too much pain or whatever, I'll play computer games or read a lot. When I feel like a normal human being I work almost all the time. Writing, producing, website work, business development tasks and conversations. They're all things that need to be done, but they're not as urgently necessary as the other things.

You see, I could really use the money I've got sitting in government coffers. It's mine, and I want it. I need a new car and a new computer with a really good webcam, along with a passport, and I need traveling funds. Come hell or high water, I'm going on a road trip. I haven't been on vacation in about 6 years, I think. that was my honeymoon with my ex, and it was four days. Before that I hadn't gone on vacation in about ten years. Sixteen years with a 4-day vacation. The computer has become a vital necessity. This 5-year-old laptop has been to hell and back. It's eaten many of the meals I have, as I can often be a bit careless that way. I wouldn't be like that with someone else's stuff, but when it comes to my own things I'm not too worried. They are just things, after all. It's got a lemon for a video processor, though, and I can't do any decent recording with it - something I have to be able to do in order to move ahead on a show project I'm working on for myself. Editing is the extent of its abilities right now.

I tell myself these things, and then that little voice creeps in to say, "One more day won't make a difference." I'm so full of crap when I talk to myself sometimes. Today is another day that I've made no dent in anything around the house, unless of course I did so by running into a wall and didn't notice the damage. Making dents in my computer is not optional. Well, it's been a productive few days, cleaning and taxes notwithstanding. So I'm not going to flagellate myself for one more day. In fact, I actually started a new blog about my experiences with disability, and how I've had to deal with family doctors and specialist. Not to mention all the weird tests I've been subjected to.

Then there are the drugs. I know a lot about pharmaceuticals, and actually have a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference for both drugs and symptoms of conditions. My new blog is called Rain on Pain - I thought it was rather fitting. Don't forget to bookmark it or subscribe to it if you're experiencing any kind of long-term medical condition. This blog you're reading now is as the name suggests - a torrential rain of my thoughts and whatever is going through that pretty little head of mine. Rain on Pain is focused entirely on coping with physical limitations, and helping people to get past them.

Speaking of physical limitations, however - I've reached the end of my tether and need to be dragged off into the arms  of Morpheus. A nice guy to snuggle with, I suppose. After said snuggling is over, I will return once again to the schedule I keep switching on my BlackBerry's calendar.