It's just one of them days...

When I wanna be all alone.

It's just one them days,

When I gotta be all alone.

-Monica

The perfect verse for how I am feeling today.  I went from have three amazingly happy and manageable days to waking up feeling frustrating with my life and my situation.  I spent the day focusing on work and trying to clean, but I couldn't shake the frustration.  Thoughts just kept spinning in my head and eventually spiraling out of control.  I realized that I don't have the motivation to sew, I was on the toilet every 20-30 minutes so I didn't feel compelled to go for a walk causing me to cancel dinner plans with a friend, and as I laid on the couch and heard the song "Say Something" by A Great Big World, I realized that my last resort to release this energy was to write.  I hate to only write when I am feeling down, but I have to allow myself to hurt, to feel sad, and to be okay with releasing it back into the universe.  My hope is that after releasing these thoughts, I will feel more calm and open to more positive light and energy.

As I think about the song, I can't help but feel deeply moved by the words.  Every time I hear the song even in my head it nearly brings me to tears because I feel like it hits me in a way that it may not hit others.

Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'll be the one, if you want me to

Anywhere I would've followed you

Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I am feeling so small

It was over my head

I know nothing at all

And I will stumble and fall

I'm still learning to love

Just starting to crawl

I feel like when I sing this song or say these lyrics I am talking to myself.  There are many times when I feel like I am giving up on myself.  This has been such a trying year that I just want to throw in the flag.  I am so tired of constantly worrying about it that going to hurt? Does that have gluten?  Does it have soy? What about diary? Well shit, what can I have?  What about when I go out, will I find a restroom?  And I know this is my new life, but some days are just harder than others.  I feel like I am just trying to stay afloat.  I am trying to find all of these things/activities to feel these voids and yet I don't know if I am overbooking myself, over committing myself, trying to do too much, or just being too hard on myself.  Or to play devil's advocate- am I being to easy on myself and letting myself get away with letting my thoughts take over?  I don't know. I just don't know and honestly, it all just leads back to not knowing who I am and not feeling comfortable in my skin.  (But let's expand on that later- it's too much to think about right now)

I woke up this morning and realized that I am just fed up.  I am fed up with being broke because I am spending so much money on "healthy" food and snacks, and supplements, and blood work to prove the supplements are working, and then more money on more supplements because the other ones hurt my stomach.  I realized that I am frustrated with how fucked up the world is in that we, I, have to spend double or triple the cost of "regular" groceries just because I need something to be gluten free or dairy free.  You would think with that lack of ingredients it would be cheaper.  I am frustrated because I am still not normal and yet I have hundreds of dollars of supplements sitting in my cabinet that I can't use.  Or I am spending over a hundred dollars a week on groceries just to avoid all the extra additives.  I mean seriously I am teacher.  A virtual teacher at that, so I make little to nothing.  And I live the Bay Area, so you might as well say I make minimum wage.  It's just that I am paying someone and spending HUNDREDS of dollars of month on a holistic method to heal and feel better, yet the lack of immediate results makes it really hard to focus on the long term goals.  It makes the daily struggle that much harder.  I like to think that I am strong woman. When I want something I usually make it happen, but for some reason, I can't break the vicious food cycle even though every one says its going to be the best for my health.  It is hard to break 30 years of bad habits.  What am I supposed to do when I can't afford any of it anymore? Which is coming up real soon.

They say its so much better for our bodies to eat organic, all natural, non-processed, or meat with no antibiotics- but the world sure makes it hard for your average person to live like that daily.

As I wrap up my thoughts and before I just start rambling, it is time for me to give thanks because although this is sad and depressing, I feel better.  This is what I needed. Thank you universe. 

Life happened (follow up)...

As my last post stated, life happened and I totally didn't make time to write, especially trying to write about the Photo a Day challenge.  I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  Part of me says it was a good because that means that my life didn't revolve around my illness whether it was by scraping up ways to raise money or writing which then turns my brain to relate every thing to it-but at the same time, it is bad that I fell off the writing bandwagon because it is really a therapeutic outlet for me.  There is really a large part of me that relies on ways to let out the energy that I feel from what has happened to me.  I do, however, find that my mind is slowly creeping away from constantly identifying as the girl with UC.  I am slowly learning to live with and really accept my new body, which is weird, because most days I hate it.  Most days I am sad that I will never use the bathroom like normal people. 

With all of that said, let me tell you what has been happening in my life.  I went to Austin as a last minute treat/trip to spend time with a friend that was recovering from a brain decompression surgery- yeah exactly!  Which was interesting because I had never really spent a lot of time with this friend prior to this.  She jokingly says we were all "downtown friends" being we only hung out when we were all downtown, but to my surprise, we were pretty much a match made in heaven.  We had SOOOO much in common. There was a lot of lounging on the couch and watching murder mysteries (my fave!) and lots and lots of laughs.  It was so relaxing and a much needed break.  I am so grateful we were able spend that much time together and I hope it was as therapeutic for her as it was for me.

I also had a mini-meltdown as I realized that I have been feeling worse and worse and the only thing I can attribute to it is my eating habits.  The crazy thing is, as much as I know I need be better because of everything I went through, but its so hard to break 30 year habits.  (Thinking about how it all started will be a blog coming soon).  SO I am trying to work harder at added veggies to every meal and even adding new veggies outside of carrots and zucchini, but it is tough.  I don't really have the time to cook.  When I need to eat, I usually wait until the last minute to eat.  So now I know that gluten is the devil for my body.  Dairy might be just a bad friend, but not as bad as gluten has been.  So now I need to get back to gluten and dairy free, but most definitely gluten free- wish me luck!

My meltdown also reminded me that I have been struggling with my depression and anxiety.  I just don't feel naturally happy unless something extreme is happening and then when something extreme happens then I fall hard.  SO if I have a great day then I can almost bet that the next day I am at the complete opposite end.  Really, really thinking about getting back on that form of medication because I am at a point where I can't do it alone.  Then that brings up emotions of feeling like I have failed since I was so adamant about not being on any medication.  

So enough of the sad stuff, when I landed from the plane, I got surprised by Marc agreeing to get us a new pup. She is a tiny pittie and has been a joy in the house.  It has been tough with reteaching bathroom and not having her chew up the whole house, but I look forward to having her in our life for many years to come.

So that's it.... Life got the best of me and it wasn't a bad thing.  More to come as I get motivated to write again.  

Much love!

Life happened...

And I lost track of my writing.  I need to get back settled after being in Austin for a week, so I will catch you all up on a post this week- finishing off the Photo a Day challenge and just updating about what's gone on the past two weeks.