They say if March comes in like a lion that it will go out like a lamb. Is the same true for years? Let’s just say 2017 roared in and all but brought me to a complete standstill. For starters I had to say goodbye to the sweetest and fiercest cuddlebug I’ve ever known. Rosie, the toy stealing Boston, became very ill very quickly and had to be put down given her age. She needed a very invasive surgery that brought no guarantees so my roommate did the right thing by escorting her to the big park in the sky. The day she left us I contracted what I am calling a stress response. I have a neck and back trauma from flying off an overpass about a decade ago. I believe my stress reactivated this whiplash so to speak and I found myself in constant pulsating sharp pain in the lower back part of my neck on the left side of my body. I also had limited mobility and I stayed this way for about a week to ten days. As soon as I was back to normal physically and mentally, my car overheated while I was driving home from seeing a friend. The red light started flashing and an alarm started going off which I am told was meant to make me pull over, which I did not. I saw no steam so I figured I would continue driving. It turns out my radiator was blown and I had to spend a pretty chunk of money on a new one, however, my coolant light was still flashing. Going on my neighbor and roommates advice I put coolant in with the motor running and found that the small leak I was eventually going to get fixed had turned into a shower under my car. No Wonder. I had put about three bottles of coolant in the radiator and people kept asking me if there was a spot under my car and there wasn’t and there never would have been since it only showered coolant while the engine was running. And back to the mechanic I went only to find out that I had two leaks and needed to replace the rest of the components of my coolant system. My main hope now is that the transmission will last long enough for me to get my debt paid off so I can buy a new car and I know what I want when that time comes… if that time comes, God willing.
So as I said in my previous post, my two main resolutions were financial based and fitness based. Both have been blown out of the water. I had one credit card paid off and was making head way on the other, but those are both back up at the top of their limits thanks to Christmas and my lovely car. Then there’s the fact that I have restarted workouts, but am having issues with my upper body. I am finding it very easy to reactivate my injury and weights are just not in the cards right now. Though, I am finding it possible to slowly ramp up yoga practice. So you know there’s some light. This past week I became very angry regarding a co-worker who is now my boss. I don’t have any hate for this individual and I do wish her the best in life – I just wish her life didn’t have to intersect with mine. We share an office and she literally goes out of her way every day to remind me that she loves everyone in the office except me. I have no idea what I did to her but she has been hateful toward me from day one. This hate drama and the fact that I really need to get out of this job and the fact that I am very unhappy doing this job are starting to take a toll on me. I just can’t seem to shrug it off and enjoy my day to the best of my ability anymore. I am beginning to get stuck in an I hate my life mode at work. It seems that this holding pen I am in just keeps getting smaller. Every time I think I understand the act of corralling I somehow find myself in a smaller space with even less to breathe. Being someone who has been touched my cancer and being someone who has stiff armed cancer for going on ten years now, I know that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and that we should each make the most of the time we have on Earth. And I actually think that it is this “life is too short to not enjoy it” mentality that is getting the best of me right now. I haven’t been happy in Florida. I don’t have a community here. My job doesn’t provide what I need on a social, mental, emotional or financial level. Yes, there are some good things to point out like my living situation, my involvement in Celebrate Recovery and getting to love on Rosie and now Lilly. But, I am at a boiling point. I say all of this to share that this past week in a moment of extreme anger (sitting at my desk and going off on everyone inside my head) my entire upper back and left side of my neck re-clinched and back to pain and immobility I went. This would be the moment that I realized that my neck and upper back pain and stiffness are in fact a response to stress. I have shared previously that I am trying to follow the adrenal body type plan in an effort to curb the effect of stress on my mind, body and soul. It speaks volumes that I can now literally stress myself into immobility and pain. I have to find a way to deal with the daily stress of life before I literally stop my own heart. Yes, I am a yogi. Yes, I know I should know how to calm and center myself. Yes, I am a Christian and I should have the peace of Jesus. But I was also an alcoholic for like 16 years so I never really learned how to deal with life, in fact, my way of dealing with life whether good or bad was to drink. It’s like putting a band-aid on a wound that requires stitches. Yes, you are covering it up, but it is never going to heal properly. That’s what my drinking did for me. Yes, I could get through some really traumatic events like losing my dad and facing my own cancer, but I never learned how to handle life on life’s terms and so while I appear to function appropriately and wisely, I am for all intensive purposes, a raging toddler on the inside. So maybe my new New Year’s Resolution for 2017 should be to learn how to ride the wave of life without letting it steal my inner joy. Well, you know how it goes… We tell God our plans and He smiles and nods and then He finds a way to tell us His plans… His plans tend to prevail. I know that much. In Memory of Rosie, the toy stealing Boston who was as fierce as she was sweet. Her humans miss her very much.
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