Things that 'happen' to us, people we fall in love with, or hate, our despairs, joys, daily strife's, they are the clouds. Coming and going. Would you fall in love with a cloud? Would you be so affected, so enamoured with something so transient? Will you cling to an idea or theory, or person or your body...? It's like opening up a whole new section of yourself when you view things this way. It's awfully liberating. Scarily so. Because there's this false bit of ourselves that likes (it seems) to listen out for the negatives. Someone may tell us a hundred times they love us, but we remember the one time they were mad and said they didn't like us much. It's insane that we do this, but I know I do, at least. When I crack myself open, to be just like the sky, I see that I can throw away my Dr decided medical diagnosis. I am not ill. I am me, myself right now. I can deal with myself who I am right now and what my body is telling me. I am utterly happy with that. And so this makes me a happy, healthy person, does it not? :) Or I don't need to stick rigidly to the notion that school is a rubbish way to spend a day (despite unschooling), I wouldn't tell my kids so, because it's not necessarily a 'truth', it's just an opinion, just a theory, it can float on by. It is not a truth for everyone. Would I burn my bridges by ever saying such a thing? Hardly.
I haven't mentioned my health and the 'illness' here for a while. Because I just haven't been identifying with myself in either of those capacities - either as healthy or not, or ill. I focus not on what I exclude from my diet - but what can I add, what can I include? That feels good. But yes, in May I will have had this auto immune diagnosis for two years and also have been gluten, dairy and sugar free for that time. I have discovered lots of things along the way:
~That nuts make me put on weight.
~That if I eat dried fruit I get itchy hands (I swear, how weird).
~That I don't get along with agave nectar. As *soon* as I quit it the last niggles of inflammation went away (the tiny bits like rib ache come back if I indulge in too much fructose in other forms too). This is the first time I have said it for sure and have hesitated in saying so, every one is so gung-ho about using it. But there is a HUGE amount of negative research on the stuff, I am finding. Basically it isn't metabolised by the blood (as we know from it's low GI status) but is shunted straight to the liver and metabolised as a fat. It has the same effects on the body as drinking alcohol, or using high fructose corn syrup. I like what I read about coconut sugar/nectar, but haven't yet explored it much, I am just trying not to let too much sweetness in - it's a hard enough taste to accommodate.
~ That the Fear in me is subsiding. Last year when we had The Snow, I felt panicked, like oh-shit-what-if-I-need-an-ambulance. I saw the Christmas tree last year and wondered gloomily if it might be the last time I did. This year neither crossed my mind. Big deals for me. As time passes I feel so much better.
~ I am in love with the acupuncture, pulse diagnosis and Chinese herbs I use. This guy I see is a miracle worker. I swear. I feel a different sort of confidence in my body than I did before I began seeing him. He is a True Healer. You'd never know from looking, but he is. This last time I had my pulse taken (a big deal, there are over 80 point on the wrist alone which correspond to different organs and parts of the body) he said it was really really good. I know it. I feel so so different from this time last year. Like my body is more my own than it's ever been.
~ Learning to meditate (even if it's jut in bed at night) has given me a deeper level of feel-good. My mind still races off in a million directions all of the time, but I am finding it easier to bring it back.
~ My racing around the country (from quacks on Harley Street to pondering leaving the country in search of a top US immunologist *gag*) have ended, because I am not so in love with chasing down those clouds any more :) I'll deal with the weather when it crosses my sky, not before.
~ I don't know if I am in 'remission' or 'healed'. I don't care for those words, I don't let my false-mind-self wander down that road of insecurity any more. I am what I am, and it's fine.
I am sure there's a lot more I have learned, am learning. I forget and backtrack when I am stressed. And being stressed does make me feel not right physically. So I am learning to let go in daily life too, (of trying to hold close those beloved clouds). What does it matter if a child learns to read at five or eight years? Really now? Does it matter if a child wants to cut her own hair off (again)? Or wear goggles 24/7 for weeks? Does it matter if kids eat beans on toast and bananas for two days straight, or six kiwi in a row, or want chocolate pancakes ever day for breakfast? These things, will all make me laugh, one day, so they may as well now, right? I'll let them.
I write these things, it's true, I feel them all and yet oh dear, my dear man chokes when he reads this blog sometimes, he's like, who the hell are you? Are you bi-polar or something? You just shouted at me for leaving my socks and cups and shit everywhere...! And (very sweetly in my ultra calm bloggy way, but probably sounding righteous) I can reply, oh yes, well that was justified, you are after all a slob and I am not a servant :) So yeah, I am trying to roll with the stress's rather than fight everything and turn life into shape I *want* it to be, it's fine just the way it is. It's shape may not be one I envisioned, but I can appreciate it's dips and curves. I struggle however to pick up after a fully grown man, but maybe he too struggles getting out of bed at 5am to earn us all a living (and thus has no time to pick up his cereal bowl?).
These are Felix's hieroglyphics, he wishes we still wrote this way, finding pictures so much easier to remember than letters. A genuine scribe :)
We made some bath bombs with some other home ed/unschooled kids. They were super easy: 4 tbsp of bicarb. soda to 2 tbsp of citric acid. Spritz with distilled witch hazel until it starts to bind then squish hard into moulds (we used egg boxes), we also added essential oils and flower heads and some special powdered colourings (all optional extras). Leave in a warm place to harden. Esmé was super girl with a mixing spoon and wouldn't let me help her at all!
I forgot to mention some of the Christmas goodies that we are all liking. Even though it was a gift of Isaac's I am loving playing Bananagrams. So much better than scrabble, addictive too and even after about two games I could see Isaac's words getting longer, which is always nice to see.
This little puzzle thing is also a nice coffee table distraction when you are sitting by the fire and chilling out. There are clues on the back of the cards should you get stuck. Not being big on spatial awareness I am amazed to find I actually like doing these. I think Father Christmas might have ordered it in from Bright Minds, at least I see they certainly sell it there too.
Esmé and I both really like this magnetic board. She likes it for what it is -shapes that stick. In haste of Christmas purchasing I didn't realise that there were even cards to slot in to the frame so I like that additional unexpected element. I like making my own designs too. Esmé doesn't like me doing this it all, she thinks it's against the rules or something and scrunches it all up, annoyed at the slapdash way I dare use it without a proper card.
Also there is this clock, my mother sent it and it annoys the hell out of my dh (mother if you read this I know that will make you happy :) ). Every hour it makes a different bird call. It's er, interesting. I hoped it might fool the cat into larking about but he doesn't even lift a lazy ear when he hears it so I wonder how realistic they really are. All the same, everyone pretty much likes it, although it does make me sometimes think, oh god *another* hour has gone by? How can it be? I still haven't done anything. Woe and woe and so on. If it gets too annoying I can always throw it hard, skyward can't I? Let it drift away with the clouds.... or more likely, knowing my feeble aim, slap me back down hard on the head. Hey ho.
A couple of final random in-house photos - first, my dh finally built some more shelving near the table for cook books and puzzle/work books, pencils etc, so it's good to have more space, he was building upwards, one shelf a week whilst I was at work, and stopped, out of wood. I think we could squeeze another shelf in, but i think he was glad to run out :) I did like coming home, wondering just how much further he would be on and getting excited to see yet more space emerging for, yet more, er 'stuff'.
And I found this pic lurking on my camera, I think it means I need to de-clutter the kitchen cupboards of pictures.... or should that be to declutter my camera-disc of pictures? Hmmmm. I don't really mind either sorts of clutter so no doubt they'll stay.
4 comments:
I read something today about cancer I think I think it applies to all kinds of 'illness' and ties into what you are saying about not being feeling 'healthy' or 'ill'.
The gist of it was that the binary outcomes of cured or incurable are commonly used but no longer entirely accurate: there is now a truce where the disease has not won and the person has not been defeated. (All those battle metaphors...) Instead there is a new normal.
I have always used the idea of new normal in relation to the changes in life with children and the growing family. Each new change becomes the new normal and the previous normal is supplanted.
I can see how a new normal can be relevant to health too though and in lots of ways is how I feel now about my condition. When I had my first DVT I felt consumed by the fact that this could kill me and at the time I likened it to a black balloon in front of may face every time I opened my eyes.
As time went on and the work I put in to regain a fully functioning limb started to pay off to some extent, the balloon drifted a way off to the edge of my field of vision, everything fell into a different place and my situation became the new normal.
As you say, thinking in terms of including and adding instead of losing and denying, makes life more peaceful.
I wrote that in chunks between other jobs and I think it shows! Sorry.
:lol thankyou for your comments, I agree :)
I read often but life gets in the way of commenting sometimes {blush}
I wanted to thank you for posting about the Square by Square toy,I ordered one from Bright Minds as I loved the look of it and wow! its totally superb! My twins are five and half and are sat here utterly mesmirised with it,taking it in turns to do cards and helping each other awwww and cheering YES!!!! when they get them!
Kind regards
GTM x
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