(Wo)man of Constant Sorrow

I have a terrible time with getting down on myself. In any given situation I will choose to think the worst of myself rather than the best. I’m working on that now. It seems that in this, as in everything, there are at least two versions, and how one thinks about it is all about how it’s spun. I can choose to think I lose interest in things quickly, or I can choose to think that I try out a lot of stuff that looks interesting, and sometimes it’s a fit and sometimes it’s not. I can choose to think that I am not a loyal person as I don’t keep a lot of friends, or I can choose to think that I really am looking for a deeper relationship than most people are, so of course people who don’t connect with me on that level aren’t going to stick around for long. I can choose to think I’m a basket case, or I can choose to think that I’m sensitive to a lot of things so of course things will bother me more than they do other people. I can choose to think I’m not good at much, or I can choose to think that I just aim for perfection and I’ll never be able to recreate what’s in my mind. Reinforce the positive…already that’s a good page to look back on.

Jane (Again)

Dazed and Confused

Of course, I had great plans for blogging last week, but other things were on my mind. In fact, my mind is a little blown right now.

Journalling reads:
so Connor is going to be tested for autism spectrum disorder. i am so overwhelmed and so torn. i’ve always found that if i treated him as if he’s autistic that it helped, but i never actually thought he might be. i was glad to get the nld diagnosis because it explained so many of the things that he had trouble with…and it wasn’t autism. but the more i looked into it (and kept getting bumped to asperger’s info) the more i wondered if maybe the nld wasn’t the only thing he had going on. where were the strengths he was supposed to have with nld…and why were all these other weaknesses he has JUST like asperger’s? i kept consoling myself that he didn’t tantrum, and he WAS concerned with how other’s viewed him. but then i discovered shut downs, which are even worse than meltdowns beccause at least i’d be ale to tell he was having a meltdown. and i discovered that theory of mind was not actually about caring what others thought of you, but about what you understood. i know a diagnosis won’t change anything…he’ll still be my sweet sweet boy. i know that knowing what is up will help us to help him, and i know he desperately wants to know why he’s different… but i never ever dreamt i’d be taking this journay and it scares me. it somehow seems easier to deal with connor as connor, rather than connor as autistic even though i know in my head the opposite is true.

And something to look back on for some encouragement:

As I wonder why I wonder

So this week has been a little lighter on the facebook games and a little heavier on the journalling. Not a whole lot of reading…I discovered a new author, Elizabeth George…well, let me back up. I’ve been reading nothing but mystery novels for the last few years…the plots are straightforward, they’re usually interesting, and if I’m just reading and not taking anything in it doesn’t really matter because they aren’t trying to say anything anyways. But our library is small and I read quickly, so even accounting for the fact that I pay no attention to a lot of the books, and therefore can read them several times without noticing, I am running out of books. So I started reading some of the more intense-looking ones. Not graphically violent, I draw the line there, but you know…thick books, small type…ones that maybe might be trying to say something, in spite of their genre? And I found Elizabeth George. And I was hooked…and I read every one in the library. And now I’m spoiled and can’t find any books I want to read.

Anyways, the point of that was that I have a lot to show you today. So without further ado (because I read somewhere that blog posts should be short and on topic, and I have trouble staying on topic…), here we go…

Re-e-e-ach, Mama!

Good for Me!

A Break in the Chaos

Land of Wonder

The quote on this last one is a little poem by Richard Feynman, my favourite physicist and man about town:

I wonder why I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder.

Thanks for reading!
Jane (again)

Patience, Grasshopper

Patience. Patience. Patience. Anyone have any spare patience?

There’s a really frustrating part of this recovery that occurs after a bad spell, in which I’m feeling better enough to notice that the house needs to be cleaned, and I’m better enough to feel a twinge of guilt (healthy guilt, no guilt-bashing!) that the kids aren’t getting as much of my attention as they and I both want, and I’m better enough so that I can actually imagine going for a walk outside or painting or taking photos, but I’m not actually better enough to do much except play Facebook games, occasionally read, and sometimes do some art journalling (weighted much too heavily on the Facebook games, and not nearly heavily enough on the other two). And then I get impatient. I lay in bed and stare out at the small patch of tree and sky I can see, assuming that the window is not iced over, and get a little blue.

I *know* I’m getting better. I *know* I’ve been sick most of my life so I can’t expect to be well all at once. I *know* I’m incredibly lucky to be recovering, and not dying, and not in any danger of it coming back, but I’m tired of being in bed and I want OUT. Can you tell?

Patience, Grasshopper.

Rainbow the Camel Has 12 Humps

Last time I posted, I should have posted my cover page, and my camel…since it’s hopefully one day going to be an actual journal I can hold in my hand, I have a cover page…

When I posted this over in the AJC gallery, I got a surprising number of comments that it had made people laugh. I’m really happy about that, but I have to admit that I don’t see why it’s funny. Maybe they didn’t mean it was funny, maybe it made them happy….it makes me happy. Maybe they did mean it was funny, and I just am not sure why. That’s okay, I don’t mind if people laugh when I didn’t intend to be funny…it’s better than people not laughing when I do intend to be funny. But that’s a different post.

I also have a camel who’s going with me on the journey. Her name is Rainbow because she’s pooping out gold for me. As I said somewhere else I posted it “she’s got a pot of gold under her bum”. ‘Cause really, what’s more gold than understanding?

I think I’ll save the ones I was working on this week for tomorrow, because I have a different title I want to use. I have so little coming out of my head that’s clever that I don’t want to waste anything that even remotely falls into that category.

“Owed to Ramona”, or “Hope Springs Eternal”

Ramona (who is a fellow traveller on the Art Journal Caravan) commented on my last post that I should post that I was okay. She’s right. I should post that I’m okay. I’ve done some lighter, “funner” pages recently that my companions at the AJC have seen that I haven’t yet shared here. I’ve been putting it off. And the reason I’ve been putting it off wasn’t clear to me until I read what Ramona had to say.

You see, the lighter pages are not really how I feel yet…they’re how I WANT to feel. I’m not thriving. If I think hard, I can see that I am better than I was a couple of months ago. But I’m not really good, you know? I still spend considerably more time in bed than out of it. I’m still not back to where I was in Sept/Oct, which was able to take care of my family and my life. Overall, I’m feeling a bit discouraged because it’s been over a year since I’ve been able to drive and I hate (yes, HATE) being so dependent on others. I’m still brain-herxing, although not often, and not nearly as bad as it was. It’s still scary. Things are still so much more dark than light in my head.

I’ve made some happy pages…but they aren’t BECAUSE I feel happy, they’re to MAKE me feel happy. So I kind of felt uncomfortable putting them up here. You know, showing you that I’m feeling good? Because I’m not. I can see more clearly that I WILL feel better, but I’m just not there yet. All my recent pages are about my hope for the future, not about where I am at the present, and until I realized that (today) I couldn’t post them here. It seemed premature. I instinctively felt it would be dishonest, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Thank you, Ramona, for helping me to PROCESS all that. (Process is, as you will see shortly, my One Word for the year.)

And so, without further ado, here is my most recent work:

Rather than making a New Year’s resolution (which I never do anyways), we were asked to choose a word to focus on this year. Mine was PROCESS:

At some point, I’ll use this as my computer desktop. To keep it fresh in my mind, since I’m such a good forgetter.

PROCESS also happened to be our first assigned word this year. Well, okay, it was our assigned word first, and it struck me as highly fitting so I chose it for my One Word.

THE CENTRAL PROCESSOR:

Our next task was to examine the word “thrive” and how it applies to our life. I can’t say I feel like I’m thriving yet, but I can see where I will one day be able to step onto that path.

ENOUGH WITH THE WEEDS:

So, there we go. That’s what I’ve been working on…trying to be cheerful and positive in spite of the fact that I feel crappy and wish the process of getting better wasn’t such a long slow one.

Thanks for reading!
Jane (Again)

The Nerve of Her!

I ended up in the ER last week when the release of toxins from the Lyme bacteria caused an reaction in my Vagus nerve. Of course, I didn’t know that then. What I knew was that my heart was going way too fast, then stopping, then lurching to a start. I knew that if I wasn’t making myself breathe in and out, then I wasn’t breathing. I knew that I was convulsing, that my muscles were cramping up, that my legs wouldn’t work…(Push down on my hands. Push down on my hands. Jane, can you push down on my hands please. No. I can’t. I’m trying but I can’t figure out how to make my legs move.) I knew that my jaw wasn’t working right, that my words were slurred, that I wasn’t convinced that my airway would stay open to breathe. I knew I was too cold. I knew I was too hot. I knew it was Lyme disease. I knew that people die from it. I knew that I didn’t like what was going on, and wanted to be somewhere where they knew how to start my heart again if it stopped, or where they could open up my throat if it closed. I knew the nurses and the docs in the ER thought I was crazy. Now I know it’s the toxins coming out of my nerves. NOW I know why it’s called neurological Lyme disease.

I was calm at the time, because I knew that if anything was going to get better I needed to not panic. (I admit I did have the thought that if my heart stopped at home, at least I’d be done dealing with Lyme disease.) Now, I’m scared. I don’t want it to happen again. I know that digestion triggers it, and cold, and heat, and tiredness, and dehydration and hunger. I’m pretty sure caffeine doesn’t help, and I’m also thinking that too much noise is a problem. Fortunately, I get some warning, so I can back off on whatever I’m doing…now that I know.

This is what came out of that fear:

Jane (again)

Back in the saddle again…

I apologize for the lengthy hiatus. Apparently, when you’ve been sick and then start getting better, you can’t just lay around in the recliner and journal. Go figure. So, I’ve been cleaning my house and teaching my children. Oh, and paying attention to my husband. And after all those things, then I go to bed and sleep hard. BUT…now I can do those things and still have enough left over for some me time! Yay!

I intended to do this page near the beginning of my journalling journey, and I did actually start it a long time ago, but I just couldn’t finish it. I guess I needed to have a better idea of what I was looking for.

The quote reads:

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by
those who dared believe that something inside of them
was superior to circumstance.
~Bruce Barton

I expect to be back much sooner next time. And hopefully I’ll be able to write more. Thanks for reading!
Jane (Again)

ch-ch-changes

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but all this self-examination stuff is really hard and sometimes I need some time to process it all.

This is something that’s very close to the centre of my being. I actually figured these things out quite some time ago (while I was in MI, for those of you who know about that part of my life) and I was very pleased to discover that they still hold for me in spite of all the other ch-ch-changes.

Life is hard. Life is scary. Life is not inevitable, but you either need to choose to live it or choose to die. One day, in my little apartment in Wixom, when my boys were sleeping, I chose to live it. I had been waffling on that decision for a long time. Years. And years. And then some more years. And then finally, I chose. And then I had to start making choices. One of the most fundamental choices I made was to be happy with myself…not to blindly be happy with myself, but to choose to do things that I could look back on and be at least okay with, if not proud of. I still don’t get it right all the time, but overall, I think I have it under control. And that’s where change comes in.

Life is hard because it’s always changing. If things stayed the same all the time it would be so easy….all I’d have to do would be to figure out one set of things and I’d have it. Like math. I love math. Math doesn’t change. I’ve figured it out, and I’m good to go. Life? Life changes. People? People change. The people I love change. The people I don’t love change. Me? I learn stuff…about myself and society and individuals and groups. And so I change…terrified the whole time, and happy, relieved and proud when I get through it.

I don’t want to be the same person I was when I was 20. Or 30, even. When I am 80, I want to look back and say “I’m not the same person I was when I was 40. Or 50. Or 70.” I’m not keen on all the personal growth crap, but I like the results. It’s painful, but if I’m embarrassed or ashamed of some of the things I’ve done, it means I’ve come far enough to know that I was wrong. And that’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. The shame is in not learning from them.

happy

Today, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt happy. I’m not sure why; it wasn’t a particularly good day. In fact, I was unreasonably anxious for a long time this morning and nothing happened after that that would make me happy. The anxiety went away–that was good, but nothing to make me happy. It was quite possibly messed-up hormones (similar to the ones that were making me anxious earlier) but at this point, I’ll take what I can get. Of course, I had to journal it: