Browsing Tag

fibromyalgia

Wintery Wooden Wonderland

Another season of cricket is coming to a close, this time with a new club. There are about five more games left, and inevitably I will hit that stage of the year where I will go “what the fuck do I do with 8 hours on a Saturday?”, and of course. During winter. I debated trying a winter sport, or some kind of activity out of the house. Photography only gets so far, if it’s raining I can’t take the camera out in it as it’ll ruin it. I can still go to the beach when it’s stormy, and I will because I enjoy the beach regardless of the weather.

I debated getting a mountain bike and going out with mates, but given my frame of mind lately. I’d like to start building things in the shed, I’ve refurbished some furniture before but haven’t built anything from scratch since I was in high school. I’d like to replace my computer desk which is currently a flimsy IKEA piece of cardboard with some legs on it. My entertainment unit is falling apart, and I’d like to replace my coffee table and dining table (not that I used it much) as they aren’t mine.

But I think spending some time away from a couch, or a screen, or binging Netflix would be good for me. I’ve done it before and I’m quite happy to light the fire outside and potter away in the shed for hours on cold nights with some good music.

February 14, 2019 by

Ketogenic Unknown

Another long weekend has rolled around and I’m using my Monday day off to continue with the binge watch of Anthony Bourdain’s, Parts Unknown.

While I’ve been watching it to reignite me going into the kitchen and cook, instead of hating the space. It’s also made me think a little more about the food we eat, and that’s besides that I’m trying ketogenic again.

There are a lot of other cultures that make everything from scratch, mostly with natural fresh ingredients. Cuba is essentially an organic country because they don’t have the economy to support pesticides and what not to keep bugs away. So they grow and use everything that’s seasonal. And not much is preserved either.

Some countries and cultures have a lot more time to cook and prepare food, and by having a simpler, slower way of life. They live longer and healthier. Their diets aren’t carbohydrate based like most of the western world.

First came 30 minute meals by Jamie Oliver, then 15 minute meals. Designed so people who wanted to cook still could around their busy schedule. But does any of these people slow down and spend hours cooking something from scratch? Do they grab a can or a jar for the convenience? And has it just become a reflex to do so? And I don’t think anyone ever really stops to think about what’s in that jar of sauce. It’s not hard to boil, peel and turn tomatoes into pasta sauce, add in some salt and pepper, basil and other stuff and you’ll have something that’s not filled with a whole bunch of names you can’t pronounce.

The same goes for that jar of honey soy sauce, have you thought of adding soy sauce and honey to your stir fry? It’s not hard and it’s probably quicker to do when you spend 5 minutes trying to open that jar.

I’m making more of an effort to give myself more free time and dedicate it to cooking better. Lets see how long that lasts though.

January 30, 2019 by

Riddle me this, riddle me that

Who’s afraid of the big, black, bat.

“New Year, New Me”. Fuck that shit. Same shit different day, and you shouldn’t need a new year to find motivation to make life changes.

However, my life changes have been slow. Almost caught up in too much thought about what I should be doing instead of taking the jump. Taking a jump, a plunge or just doing something that can step you out of your comfort zone can be completely daunting.

Life is at a crossroads.If I go down path A, I will no longer live the current lifestyle I have, which I find boring and depressive. Which sounds bad, but I have nothing to stimulate my mind or have much to be passionate about. But it means more freedom and probably better mental health. Or do I go down path B, where I would have less freedom, but be keeping myself busy, more productive and a potential career change and doing things I’ll be passionate about. Or at least something different than my usual day to day job. But how will that impact my mental health? And also my chronic illness?

I guess I’ll have to find out along the way. Both paths are enticing to go down, freedom versus doing something I really think I would enjoy. But may still give me the option of path A later down the road.

This is how my life works, a constant state of my head feeling like a washing machine going while full of scrambled eggs. The same goes for people and potential relationships, they say one thing but do another. Add that into all the other factors of those scrambled eggs spinning around and my head is just a place of violent, mushy clutter. My mind is set to “slow grind” and will leave me with a cluster of riddles to solve.

 

January 14, 2019 by

Change of the guard

Earlier in the year I stepped down from my duties at a cricket club I’d played at for some time, I lost the love for a game that I’d played for a long time. I found no fun, no enjoyment. People’s attitudes were creeping in and it became toxic. Being a member of the committee meant more time doing stuff for the club rather than playing a game and enjoying myself. Eventually, I stopped enjoying myself, and when insults came from people during a game I simply had enough and walked away.

I sat with the idea of giving it up altogether, or moving to another club. A different environment. I had to be selfish for my own sake for once. So after many months of thinking it over I eventually shifted clubs.

New faces, new places, a whole lot of new everything. A new environment has been a breath of fresh air, I’ve enjoyed my cricket so far this year. I’m getting a lot more of a role which I wasn’t expecting, but also high expectations came when I joined that I would be doing a lot, so personally I don’t think I’ve fired yet. I’m hoping I can contribute more than I have to the team, I’m with a great bunch of guys, and there is a huge cultural difference to the previous one. Going from mostly white Australian players to having half the team from the sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka). They all have a different lease on the game. They have fun, they play hard and they are happy to lift other players, give them encouragement and advice.

I’ve even had some coaching (see: advice from a mate) on my batting. In the years of playing cricket at my last club with a paid coach I never got any. I got a few minutes with someone who isn’t a coach but I took their advice and I’m playing better than I have in years.

I’m looking forward to how much more I can do this year, even it’s a little bit.

December 10, 2018 by

Your friends limit is exceeded

I came to the revelation the other day, that life itself has a limit for your friends list. I’m not talking about Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. But you’re actual real life, and occasionally if you stick your head up from your phone, you’ll see great graphics and dynamic game plays, difficulty setting on high and you can’t change it.

2017 has been one of those years where I’ve sat back more and observed, mainly the people in my life. Those who come, those who stay, and those who only drop in like it’s a pit-stop. I got tired of those who come and go as they please, the ones I’d text, call, or message on some format and see how they were doing. I got rid of Facebook nearly two years ago, barely anyone noticed and my parents still seem to think I’m on there despite multiple times telling them I’m not.

I’ve had people come and talk to me about their life problems, how crap it is for them, and ask for advice. Then leave, only to ignore anything I said in the first place and for me to watch idly on the sidelines while it happens over and over again. I stopped engaging with these people and now I don’t hear from them. There’s also the toxic ones who are no longer there as well.

But it feels like at some stage life got an error message “Your friends limit is exceeded”, and nothing was going to change from there. But by seeing what happens when I don’t be myself, who usually checks in on people and see’s how they are doing. I found no one goes out of their way to contact me, it’s been somewhat of a purge. But in that process I’ve removed people off that friends list, and been able to allow good, and great people come flooding in, and now I’m more selective about who I let in and who gets my time.

I guess this is my version of being selfish, I changed cricket clubs to a new environment where I’m enjoying a game that’s given me a lot of joy. When I’ve had no joy in it for such a long time. I’ve changed my environment to allow good people in, and those who pay no attention to the world around them, and make no effort have drifted out and unaware of what’s going on. They don’t understand there’s bigger stuff than themselves going on.  But sometimes we need to be selfish to those people.

I guess the other thing is, I’m only putting as much time into people as I feel they deserve. There’s only so much I can ask people about catching up until eventually, I give up and stop asking. Despite being told I shouldn’t be the person who gives up.

November 30, 2018 by

There is no spoon

“Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth…there is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”

I think today is the first time I’ve thought to myself that I’ve run out of spoons. I’d almost forgotten about the spoon theory for those that have a chronic illness. Today couldn’t have been more shit, leaving the house at the crack of dawn to make my way to the hospital for a follow up to a blood test. Standard routine test for my calcium and PTH levels, and more than likely, as per the past three. It was going to be slightly elevated but nothing to worry about.

An hour wait after my appointment was scheduled, and mostly myself thinking it was that useless Doctor again who didn’t know his left from his right and probably got lost on the way in, and that’s just at the car park. I ended up with a different doctor, and instantly thought it would be downhill from here.

But I came in with the same attitude that’ll all be the same and I’l just head out and come back in twelve months. Then wham. All my levels were elevated, but why hadn’t I felt any of the symptoms like usual? Came from my vitamin D supplements that I was already taking were keeping them mostly under the radar.

I think I’ve managed my fibromyalgia, and hyperparathyroid okay for the last year. I’ve been active, not been hugely tired or out of spoons due to too much work, too much activity or too much interaction with people. But this time, I was so fucking drained early in the morning that I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I managed to stumble through the day and get some work done, but mostly zone out between jobs and forget about exisiting.

The only positive I can take out of it is that I have a different surgeon this time and a better plan of attack, he was able to explain to me that the constant bone pain comes from an over active parathyroid gland, which then tells my body I need more calcium in my blood stream and takes it out my bones. The only way to slow that parathyroid down is with vitamin D. So even though I’m taking 2,000 UI a day, my vitamin D levels haven’t changed over a year, and that’s with all the outside sunshine from being at the beach during summer as well, or playing/watching cricket. Essentially I’m doing to load myself with high levels of vitamin D and then taper it back to my regular dose and see how the body is in three months time. So yet, another time to put my body through a torture test, and also my mental health of going through all this shit again, much a likeness to recycled toilet paper.

Over time I’d managed to divide my spoons into certain areas, physically, mentally, spiritually etc. So some days I could be out of spoons physically, but still be okay as I had spoons in other areas. But if I didn’t take time to recharge the ones that were depleted, I would start to burn through the others faster. Eventually until I’d be out of them everywhere and struggle to function at all, which is when I’d be pushing into a flare up. Spend a weekend on the couch, not answering texts and just watching tv and napping until I’d be able to do start to build them back up.

But today hearing that news, they all dropped through the floor at the same time. It’s been a long time since that happened, let alone rung out of any spoons. I think given I’d simplified my life I was able to use them more wisely on things that wouldn’t be so taxing.

September 25, 2018 by

Cut my life into pizza

There’s a lot of things you don’t get taught in life, like doing your taxes or filling out a passport. There are a lot of things you’ll be told in life, like to “expect the unexpected”. There’s irony in expecting the unexpected, you can do everything in your power to be prepared but then it’ll hit you in some silly little way.

Saturday morning I slept in, one of the few times my body let me sleep long enough. Did my usual things around the house, then went to get my laptop out of my backpack to do some work on it. I couldn’t find it where I left it, I searched the house high and low. Drove to the office to check, checked the house again. Gone. So I logged into my Google account, and saw activity on the laptop while I was asleep, from an IP address that wasn’t mine.

Stolen.

Trace the IP, find it’s location via latitude and longitude. Call the police and follow up on the report I made when I first found it was gone. Give them the details, the CIB head off to the address given. No luck on finding the laptop, but sounds like it had been there.

I’m not worried about the physical laptop itself, or the cost or replacing it. But that people were going through my email, my bank accounts, searching my car registration details and number plate. It’s left me in a very anxious state knowing they could come back to try for my car, it left me on edge and unable to sleep.

Also in my backpack was some work stuff, so I had to contact clients and get them to revoke my security access. Change passwords to all my accounts, removing syncing on browsers. All this over the sake of a $60 backpack and 4 year old laptop I paid $400 for. Of which by the way, they were trying to load Windows 10 on it, and it doesn’t run it. Morons.

Never the less, it took me less than a few hours to get all the information needed to pass onto detectives for them to investigate and gain entry to the place of the IP address.

I also had my notepad in the backpack, which was used with my counselor. It contained two years of my thoughts and work with them and it was all written down for a stranger to read. It’s a massive invasion of my headspace, and honestly I don’t care about the laptop either. Just the breach of my own privacy and the stuff in the note pad. If I had the chance I’d smash it in front of them. I’m more attached to the photos I had on there (which are backed up anyway), and my blog posts and what not that were still in drafts. My emails etc. I don’t have anything to hide, but anyone just waltzing through my personal stuff isn’t great for the mental health. It’s left me rethinking a lot of things, and I don’t want to be one of those hypochondriacs who get bars all over the windows and security alarms. But now I do feel like I need something in place. Some contents insurance, a camera, and probably some tracking for my valuables (mainly my pc’s).

I’m not really sure how to handle it, or what to do. I’ve been anxious since it happens and all the doors end up locked and checked before I go to sleep or leave the house.

May 27, 2018 by

What if All I Want is A Mediocre Life?

I came across this post sometime early in 2017, and it made a lot of sense. I thought it’s worth reposting, not only for others but also to reference for myself at some stage. Just in case the post disappears I guess.

What if All I Want is A Mediocre Life?

What if I all I want is a small, slow, simple life? What if I am most happy in the space of in between. Where calm lives. What if I am mediocre and choose to be at peace with that?

The world is such a noisy place. Loud, haranguing voices lecturing me to hustle, to improve, build, strive, yearn, acquire, compete, and grasp for more. For bigger and better. Sacrifice sleep for productivity. Strive for excellence. Go big or go home. Have a huge impact in the world. Make your life count.

But what if I just don’t have it in me. What if all the striving for excellence leaves me sad, worn out, depleted. Drained of joy. Am I simply not enough?

What if I never really amount to anything when I grow up – beyond mom and sister and wife. But these people in my primary circle of impact know they are loved and that I would choose them again, given the choice. Can this be enough?

What if I never build an orphanage in Africa but send bags of groceries to people here and there and support a couple of kids through sponsorship. What if I just offer the small gifts I have to the world and let that be enough.

What if I don’t want to write a cookbook or build a six-figure business or speak before thousands. But I write because I have something to say and I invest in a small community of women I care about and encourage them to love and care for themselves well. Because bigger isn’t always better and the individual matters. She is enough.

What if I just accept this mediocre body of mine that is neither big nor small. Just in between. And I embrace that I have no desire to work for rock hard abs or 18% body fat. And I make peace with it and decide that when I lie on my deathbed I will never regret having just been me. Take me or leave me.

What if I am a mediocre home manager who rarely dusts and mostly maintains order and makes real food but sometimes buys pizza and who is horrified at moments by the utter mess in some areas of her home. Who loves to menu plan and budget but then breaks her own rules and pushes back against rigidity. Who doesn’t care about decorating and fancy things. Whose home is humble but safe.

What if I am not cut out for the frantic pace of this society and cannot even begin to keep up. And see so many others with what appears to be boundless energy and stamina but know that I need tons of solitude and calm, an abundance of rest, and swaths of unscheduled time in order to be healthy. Body, Spirit, Soul healthy. Am I enough?

What if I am too religious for some and not spiritual enough for others. Non-evangelistic. Not bold enough. Yet willing to share in quiet ways, in genuine relationship, my deeply rooted faith. And my doubts and insecurities. This will have to be enough.

And if I have been married 21 years and love my husband more today than yesterday but have never had a fairy tale romance and break the “experts” marriage rules about doing a ton of activities together and having a bunch in common. And we don’t. And we like time apart and time together. Is our marriage good enough?

What if I am a mom who delights in her kids but needs time for herself and sometimes just wants to be first and doesn’t like to play but who hugs and affirms and supports her kids in their passions. A mediocre mom who can never live up to her own expectations of good enough, let alone yours.

What if I embrace my limitations and stop railing against them. Make peace with who I am and what I need and honor your right to do the same. Accept that all I really want is a small, slow, simple life. A mediocre life. A beautiful, quiet, gentle life. I think it is enough.

Source: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/want-mediocre-life/

March 11, 2018 by

Even music can soothe the savage beast

I’ve been surrounded by music for as long as I can remember, I guess that’s what happens when the house you grow up in has a recording studio attached to it. I got a guiatar for my 16th birthday, although that didnt last long and I broke 3 fingers. Now I play it badly. I can pick up the drums, and play that badly too. But I’m still surrounded up until now, there isn’t a moment where I don’t have something going. The realisation is that I listen to a lot of music since a teenager through to now is to block out the noise, either the outside world or the torment that goes on in my head on a daily basis. It’s a good block for mental clutter.

It’s funny how certain albums or artists come along at times of need though. I remember having to deal with a lot of heavy stuff through 2013 and 2014, and I spent most of that listening to Deftones ‘Koi No Yokan’. It got me through a tough time in my life.

I hit another tough time in my life recently, and I thought maybe it would help again. But this time it didn’t, being a long-time Deftones fan usually any of their music can settle me down and put me back in good headspace. But this time it didn’t.

It’s been harder this time around, but I’ve found some comfort in Northlanes new album ‘Mesmer’.

I still struggle with a lot, but I guess listening to music helps me push through. But sometimes a string of lyrics and words can remind you of people, lost loves, lost friends and hard times you’ve come upon through life.

I can only imagine what will come the next time I need music like this again.

December 8, 2017 by

With a little help from my friends

I’ve found over the past few years I have a lot of people who come to me for advice, more specifically relationships, mental health and dealing with situations they’ve run out of ideas with. I’ve been told a few times I think a bit more than other people. Higher capacity? I’m not sure, I can’t really think of the words right now.
I’ve always been the one who holds up to be strong and still able to think when there’s disaster. Even with my own life, but that’s not always the case. While these people are friends, it got to the stage where I felt like an emotional drop in house. People would have no contact with me for a while, and then I’d get a text, a call or something out of nowhere because something in life has caused them a problem. After a while I had to say no, it was costing me friendships and relationships.

It’s probably cost more recently, because I’m that person everyone comes to for advice they seem to have this expectation that I can always help and always give advice. But there’s no forethought that I too, can be dealing with my own issues.

It’s like I guess that because of who I am, I’m not allowed to have a break down, ever.

For the first time in a long time, I struggled to handle something in my own life. But all those who were dependant on me when they needed help, have shut me out. I already had very little friends at that stage, and I guess that shows who the people are in your life. Whether they are there to support you when it gets tough, or they are ready to run.

December 7, 2017 by