I am keeping a new schedule.
Sorta.
Kinda.
Yeah.
Okay.
Strictly speaking, I HAVE a new schedule
and I am keeping to it ISH-ly.
It is helping.
I am getting more done.
I am more aware of what I am NOT getting done.
The have done more since last Wednesday than in the last two weeks combined. I have had a headache since August 2016. A nagging, ever present, drippy faucet kind of headache.
The cumulative effect like the frog that jumped into the pot of water and the heat was turned up and he did not notice he was being cooked.
I was cooked.
Where you in the band? I was.
Remember the drummers? Tick. Tick. Tick. Boom. Boom. Boom.
They were never quiet. They tap away like an ever dripping faucet until all the sudden it was too much to handle and the band director yelled or threw his baton.
I was ready to throw my baton!
When I could not ignore it any longer I would lay down and listen to my sinuses drain from one side of my head to the other.
My face hurt. Did you know facial pain can be a symptom associated to lack of sleep?
Three rounds of antibiotics. Diet changes. Changed allergy meds. Nothing. I was not functioning tired.
Primary care physician sent me for a sinus scan in one of those big tubes. I fell asleep during the scan. Ear, nose and throat doctor was next. The ENT decided sinus disease was not worth treating and sent me for a sleep study. Sleep study reported that I stop breathing 1.7 times an hour for an average of 20 seconds each time. Doesn’t qualify as sleep apnea. Scheduled an appointment with another sleep specialist but not until the end of April. AUGH!
Completely exhausted to the point of being dizzy from minor outings.
My work suffered. My work almost stopped!
My inner critic is calling me lazy.
I am not lazy.
I am a high energy person and I was living a zero energy life.
My inner critic is so loud I wonder if the people I pass can hear him.
Pot Luck is the third Sunday after the 11:30 hippie service. This particular pot luck was a combination pot luck, pie social and baby shower! Win! Win! WIN!!! Visiting with two friends talking about life we had an epiphany.
One friend suggests, “We should …” and I say, “No, I am a lump.”
Both reminded me, “You are NOT a lump.”
Embarrassed I reply, “YES. I AM!” and I shared my ever increasingly state of unproductivity.
Both friends, without judgment, suggest something that
I knew but chose not to know. “You might be depressed.”
Cushioned in love, the dreaded D word came not as devastation but as revelation.
The clouds parted and a ray of sunshine shone through the stained glass windows.
The angels began to harmonize.
I am depressed.
I did not realize I could be happy and depressed.
As soon as the words were spoken I knew they were right.
As soon as I got home I left a message for my doctor. We met Wednesday morning. Ran blood work. We discussed the possibility of depression. I was on a very low dose so she was comfortable moving up to the next dosage. Efficacy can diminish with time and with traumatic experiences. (The prior 18 months had been emotionally traumatic.) Wednesday night I took a higher dose.
I felt better Thursday morning. By Friday I felt alive again!
It has been a week on the new dose of anti-depressant. My face almost doesn’t hurt. My head only hurts a little.
SLEEP IS MARVELOUS!
I highly recommend it.
Fight for it.
I feel alive again for the first time in a very long time.
I have a lot of catching up to do.
No, that is not a healthy outlook.
Yes, had this been discerned earlier I would be further along in my business.
But it was not.
I tried to figure this out on my own.
I could not.
Lent began one week after I made the change.
It feels significant to me.
My mind has cleared.
The fog has lifted.
The temptation is to run forward 90 miles an hour.
I did that this past weekend and I crashed yesterday.
I cannot make up for the time lost.
I can only start where I am.
I can fight that truth or embrace it.
I am learning to embrace now.
Remembering that I am dust and to dust I will return.
My prayer, my hope, is to “serve
with a quiet mind, with gladness and singleness of heart.”
For me service includes art making.
Thank you for sharing this artful journey with me.
PS
Drama entered my life in May 2015. Erupted January 2016. An eruption in July culminated in a nuclear meltdown the week after Thanksgiving 2016. Shunning plays a heavily in the narrative. The details don’t matter. What matters is forward momentum. I realize now that part I am experiencing is grief. Because no one died I was not allowing myself to grieve. Grieve for lost relationships. Grieving for what was, what could have been and what will never be. Naming the emotions, facing the emotions, is healing.
I am not free, but I am freer.
in and for everyone but myself.
Letting go.