THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’m not going to sit back and sugar coat a gratitude post for you today. This week has been mentally taxing and physically challenging. My body did not react well to that antibiotic I was taking for the whole gross cyst thing and I ended up covered in a rash and at the walk in clinic on Monday. At the walk in clinic, yet another sixteen year old boy calling himself a doctor looked at my rash and prescribed an extra strong antihistamine. I went to bed at 8:30 Monday night thanks to the new drug. A new set of harder exercises were added to my physical therapy routine and at my follow up exam with the bone and joint doctor, the doctor just told me to watch out for buckling in my knee. I’m ready to move forward and go scooter shopping, but every day this week someone at work has come up to me to express how sorry they were to hear about V. Also, I think we might be couch shopping again because a new email about our couch arrived with a new estimated delivery date of February of next year. By Thursday afternoon, I was feeling really cranky, which I’ll take right now because it’s better than feeling nothing at all.

Which was where I’ve been leaning ever since camp.

A series of minor illnesses has accumulated into a massive feeling of general unwellness that has left me contemplating cleansing diets and acupuncture, drinking more juice, eating more mushrooms. Falling for a fad, which is when I know I’ve reached desperation mode. At the end of each day, I promise myself to do better, be better because I know I’m not doing my best, but just repeat the cycle the next day. I’ve filled a pool full of my own expectations and standards in which I am barely keeping my head above right now. I’m drowning in a pool of my own making and from what I have been hearing from those around me, I’m not the only one. I think many of us have been holding onto some great expectations that this time this year would be different from this time last year and it is, but it isn’t.

So, how do you find gratitude when all what you really want to do is hide inside a blanket fort?

No…really, how do you do that?

There is gratitude in the ability to confess that you are struggling. For me, admitting that I’m struggling makes me feel like I’m whining or feeling sorry for myself. It is a sign of weakness and not allowed for someone who has tattooed “Je suis forte” onto their wrist, but that tattoo is not a statement. It is a reminder to myself on days of weakness that I am strong. With that reminder comes the knowledge that I am only as strong as my support system and if my support team doesn’t know I’m struggling, they can’t support me. Yesterday, I was holding two slide books in which I had balanced ten slide holders and had picked up the heavy metal structure all of those things go into. Then I went to open the door to carry those things to my desk so I could start loading slides and I had no hands available to turn the door handle. A coworker was walking up behind me at this moment and then seeing the mess I’d put myself into, asked “Do you need help?” And I hesitated. For a moment I was really going to say “No thank you, I’ve got this.” Hands completely full and precariously balancing all of the things, I still thought for a moment that I would find a way to open the door with my foot. Instead, I came to my senses and asked him to please open the door for me. My first instinct for everything is “I’ve got this.” Slap on a smile. Fake it ‘till you make it, but you know what? Sometimes your hands are full and you just need someone to open a door for you. And you have to be willing to not just accept the help but to admit that you can’t do everything.

This might be a stretch for gratitude, but these are the days that demand reaching. It’s worth the stretch.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Nov 9, 2018 at 5:50pm UTC

2 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram

I’m sitting in the library, typing this and it is currently snowing. It started yesterday around lunch time. I don’t know when it finally stopped last night, but we woke up to everything coated in a layer of frozen slush. The sun came out just enough today to melt that layer away and now it’s started snowing again. It is almost a fitting ending to this week. It is as if someone decided to throw everything at me this week just to see what I was made of. Well…I’m not made of fluff and sugar or things that are brittle. Je suis forte.

I stopped at a cemetery on the way to work this morning. It is one of our historic cemeteries that offer two for one plots on the same grounds as baseball legends Buck O’Neil and Satchel Page. It seems like a morbid thing to enjoy, but I love old historic cemeteries and this one has the most beautiful trees in the Fall. Sometimes a fog rolls in and lingers along the tombstones like a 1950s black and white horror flick. There’s a cathedral style crypt built into the side of a hill near the back that is hauntingly beautiful. Despite how I feel about cold weather, I can’t help but notice how beautiful the snow can be and I knew that the cemetery would be a perfect place to capture that beauty. The only regret I have is that I didn’t have my Nikon on me. The decision to stop was a spur of the moment choice and I hadn’t thought to pack that camera. In the end, though, it didn’t really matter what camera I had in my hand. Something sparked as I stepped out of my warm car into the cold cemetery. I thought “Oh…hey! I remember this feeling!” traipsing through the snow and taking pictures. As I left the cemetery, I noticed another car had followed me in. That person was now standing outside their vehicle with their camera maybe feeling that same spark.

I’m going to be just fine.

EVERYTHING'S SO EASY FOR PAULINE

Instagram photo by Cindy Maddera * Nov 9, 2016 at 8:23pm UTC

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 4 likes

It is seven thirty on a brisk Saturday morning. I am standing in line at Heirloom waiting my turn to place my order, the same order I place every Saturday: biscuit sandwich with egg, white cheddar and pesto and a cup of coffee. On this day, there's a young woman and a couple in front of me in line. I hear the young lady, who is obviously friends with the couple, say "Oh! I left my wallet with my purse. Let me go get it." I watch her walk towards a table. She places her hand on her toddler's head who is sitting in a highchair as she reaches for her purse. My focus turns back to the couple she's left waiting in line. 

I notice the woman's shoes first, stylish heeled bootlets. She's wearing skinny jeans or leggings that look like jeans with a fur vest that I can only hope is fake, but looks real. I almost want to reach out and pet her vest, just to see if I can tell if it is real fur or not. Her long blond hair is perfectly combed and curled, not a strand out of place and her makeup looks like it was applied by a professional. The woman is bouncing a drooly baby in her arms, alternating between saying things to her husband like "Ooh, let's get one of those poptarts!" and baby talking to her baby. "Who's the cutest thing in the world? Who is?" She continues this back and forth exchange even after her husband starts to place the order. 

Her friend comes back with her wallet and steps in line behind me. I turn to her and tell her to go ahead. She looks at me and says with surprise "Are you sure?!?" I shake my head and say "Yes. You guys are together. You should order with them." She says "thank you!" as she steps in front of me in the line. I notice that she is dressed in a similar fashion: skinny jeans/leggings and a sweater instead of a fur vest. The difference is, she is not pristine. Her sweater is twisted to one side with the belt hanging loose to drag near the floor. Her heeled boots are more worn looking and her hair is already escaping the clip she'd used to pin it back. She seems tired and slouches and in fact she had to walk back to the table twice because she'd forgotten the first time why she had even gone over there. 

I couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic for the disheveled friend. I could tell she was trying and I also knew that if she had not been meeting her friends there on this morning, she would have been content to be there in her sweats with her hair pulled into a messy pony tail. The one bouncing the baby in her arms just made it look too easy, too perfect. I wanted to whisper to the woman in front me "it's not a competition. you are equally beautiful." I could sense the small of wave of frustration as she looked at her friend bouncing that baby and how easy she made it all look. And again, I wanted to whisper in her ear "it is not as easy for her as she makes it look. your friend has bad days too." I wanted to tell her those things not so that she would find comfort in her friend's possible bad days, but so that she would find ease in the knowledge that she is not alone in her struggles. 

We are not alone in our struggles. Some of us just have days where we are better at hiding it than others.